Death By Dorian Morrie Discussion Questions

1. When it comes to the topic of death and how people in our society interact when it occurs in their lives, can be a very uncomfortable conversation, but why is this? We live in a death-denying society. “We prefer to obscure the dying process, we have a taboo on death conversation, and denial of dying” (Leming, 60). We continue to live our lives after our loved ones has passed, referring to them in past tense, and will not have conversation about their death until about a year later. I think the author may have felt compelled to include these accounts of deaths because it was the true meaning of why Morrie wanted to share his story, experience, and life’s greatest lesson. When Morrie’s father passed, Morrie was a lost and a confused child
Death anxiety is a multidimensional concept and is based on four concerns: the death of self, the deaths of significant, the process of dying, and the state of being dead. Although, death anxiety shows eight types of death fears that can be applied to the death of self and the death of others from dependency, the pain in the dying process, the indignity in the dying process, the isolation that can be part of the dying process, the leaving of loved ones, concerns with the afterlife, the finality of death, and the fate of the body. Although, it is proven that that younger you are the more likely you are to have death anxiety and the older you are the less likely you are to have death anxiety. According to Dr. Kubler-Ross, the five stages of dying are very similar to the stages of grief: denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. However, the stages of dying and grief have 3 similar factors: not linear, not universal, and not mutually exclusive. Morrie’s greatest fear about his dying is different than what the research indicates. He was very accepting of his disease and was very knowledgeable about what will happen next. I could tell that towards the end he was getting frustrated because he couldn’t write down his thoughts anymore being of the progressiveness of his disease, but he never took his anger out on
Last but not least, the most important lesson I learned from reading about Morrie’s end of life experiences was the meaning of people. The reason I say this is because in today’s society we have so much technology, so many jobs were you barely have time for yourself and the over-time is killer because you need that extra cash to buy something you really want. Morrie talked about time and how none of that matters, He talked about how life was full of time but yet it can be wasted on pointless things. Other than going to a job to get paid, that will not matter have you retied. No one is going to stay I wish I would have worked more after they retire, they wish they spent more time with their family and loved ones because at the end of the day Morrie thought time was limited and should be spent doing other things for others not what could benefit yourself. The author really taught me to spend my time wisely and spend it with my loved ones because this time I have now is something that I cannot get back. When I look back at this beautiful story I often think of my grandma. Before my grandma passed I didn’t spend as much time with her as I would have liked, but this was also because of my parents’ divorce situation. After she passed I regretted not going to see her as much and tried to do things differently with my other grandparents. Reading this book really opened my eyes more of the importance of your family and loved ones when it comes to death these are the people who you