'Til Death Do We Part / Life After Death
I suppose I don't portray the typical, dressed in black, widow most people would expect. Some people see me as being hard-hearted; others say I'm strong. This being the second time I have experienced the death of a husband, I can only say that I'm glad I am dealing with the death of my recent husband much differently than I did with the first one. The experiences I've had with death, along with the circumstances of each one, have had a big impact on how I view life.
The death of my first husband, Fred, was sudden. He was twenty-one years young. We had been married two months, six days, when I received a phone call saying Fred had been in an accident where he worked; they were transferring him to the hospital. When I arrived at the hospital they told me he was dead. The death of my recent husband, Tom, was not expected; yet, it was inevitable. Had he lived a month longer, we would have celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary. Tom was twenty-nine when he had his first heart-attack. A second heart-attack followed three years later, leaving him with an aneurism. Over the next two years I watched Tom lose a little more of his life each day, as he took on the transformation of an old man. He came to accept his death two months before he died. The night he died he looked at me and calmly told me he was "going"; I watched as he took his last breath.
I had never experienced the death of anyone close to me when Fred died; as a matter of fact, his was the first funeral I attended. I didn't know how to deal with his death so I turned to alcohol to escape reality. I feel I lost a couple years of my life before I realized I was headed for self-destruction. I forced myself to get rid of the alcohol and face reality. I was more prepared for Tom's death, considering the severity of his illness. I have grieved for Tom for the past two years; I'm tired of grieving. I'm ready to start living again. I have so much to live for: our three wonderful children, a career, good health, a very loving family, and lots of friends.
I'm not hard hearted. I don't mean to be cruel when I joke about death, or when I say things like, "I don't think I'll ever marry again. Besides, I doubt any man would consider marrying me. Look at the odds." That's my defense against pain. I can't say I always feel strong. I've found that if I act strong and people portray me as being strong, they will treat me as if I am strong. I draw my strength from this interaction with people. I have an appreciation for life like I've never had before. I have a life to live, and I want to achieve as much happiness as I can in my life.
— Cheryl Brumfield, English 101, Fall, 1991
Images
California, the Golden State. I lived there for twenty years. When I mention that fact to friends and acquaintances in this area, their first reaction is one of envy. "It must have been great living there" is a common response to my statement. California, it seems, is a very desirable place to live. It is a true paradise.
West Virginia, almost heaven. I grew up here. For the first twenty years of my life I lived here. When I told my friends in California that I was moving back to West Virginia, their response was, "Why in the world would you want to move back to a place like that?" West Virginia, it seems, is an undesirable place to live. It is not even close to paradise.
While it is true that California has a lot to offer, there is also a downside to living there. West Virginia may not have as much to offer, but there can be an upside living here. It is all a matter of how you want to live your life.
When I think of California, I think of fences. When I first moved there, one of the biggest adjustments I had to make was the fact that everyone has fences. Every home has a fence of some sort surrounding it, usually tall enough so that you cannot see into your neighbors' yard or they into yours. Privacy is very important. Being used to the open spaces in West Virginia, where you seldom saw tall, wooden fences, it gave me a feeling of claustrophobia. As time went on, I realized that the fences were symbolic of the people who lived behind them.
In California, everyone has their own small circle of friends. In most cases your friends were also the people you worked with. You seldom strayed from this group of people. It was like your security blanket. If you lived in an apartment or condo, you might have a nodding acquaintance with your neighbors, but that was the extent of your involvement. I once lived in an apartment for seven years. In all that time I never knew the first names of my neighbors on either side of me. I was just too busy with work and my own set of friends to bother getting to know them. There was no sense of neighborhood or community. People just went their own way, oblivious to anyone or anything that was not part of their daily lives.
In West Virginia, it seems that the opposite is true. Everyone wants to know everything about everybody. In the apartment where I am living, I actually know the people who live around me. I have even been into their homes. They seem to genuinely care about what is going on in the neighborhood. There is definitely a sense of neighborhood and community here. It is not unusual to set out on the porch on a summer night and have your neighbors stop by and "visit for a spell." This concept seems almost foreign to my nature. I find myself having to adjust to people's friendliness.
At first, I was suspicious. I wasn't used to this kind of openness, but in the year since I moved back here, I have seen a change in myself. I like knowing my neighbors. It gives me a feeling of belonging, a feeling that I never experienced in California. I don't think I could ever go back to the kind of impersonal way of life that, to me, is symbolic of California. Give me the good old down home friendliness of West Virginia any day.
— Debbie Williams, English 101, Fall 1992
Two Childhoods
When I was young, my mother told me stories about her childhood. I loved her tales and still think of them. It was intriguing to hear about life thirty years before mine began. What fascinated me most, however, were the differences between her youth and mine.
My mother grew up in the country. She spent most of her young years on a farm in Argillite, Kentucky, surrounded by animals, orchards, cane fields, and agricultural machinery. By the time she was six, she was a walking agricultural textbook. Hers was a simple, serene, and comfortable life within a close-knit, neighborly environment. My mother's days were filled with swimming in nearby rivers and lakes, climbing and falling off trees, scooter-riding down country lanes, playing marbles with friends, bird watching and mending of wings, and building fences and tree houses.
My childhood, on the other hand, was spent in Ashland, Kentucky, without animals, scenic surroundings, or close-knit neighbors. Mine was a lifestyle of fast activity crammed into a tight schedule. Nature was replaced by shops and businesses, trees by tall buildings. My knowledge was not based on the simple things at hand, but on expensive toys, the latest clothes, and the newest sneakers. Compared to my mother's country existence, my city childhood seems humdrum — a constant series of trips to the park or movies, visits to the grocery store or shopping center, picnics at the amusement park.
Just as our lifestyles differed, so too did our personalities. Relatives say that my mother was a loving, caring child who was always willing to help. She was praised for being clever and vibrant, level headed, and spoke her mind when she saw fit, but she placed demands on her parents for toys or fancy clothes. Somehow her environment, which had instilled in her an appreciation of nature and living things, was enough.
I, on the other hand, was considered a bit too extroverted, selfish, and stubborn. I reveled in being petulant, pig headed, demanding, and unstable. Although I could be loving, I cleverly used this trait to my advantage in an attempt to manipulate my parents and get the beautiful toys and clothes I wanted. After all, these gave me all the aesthetic appreciation I needed. In fact, I was a brazen faced brat.
Looking back, I think it would have been nice as a child to have fallen off a few trees or driven a scooter at maniacal speeds or even milked a cow or crushed some coffee beans in a mortar. Yes, that would have been nice. It really would have been.
—Lucille Stark, English 101, Spring, 1993
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