Religion and Perspective

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     While reading The Clan of One-Breasted Women, I encountered a quote that changed my perspective on the common but tragic event of death.

    Williams described her experience with watching women from her family die of cancer in a perspective that I could never imagine.

 "In the end, I witnessed their last peaceful breaths, becoming a midwife to the rebirth of their souls."

    Throughout my life, although I've never been through the same experiences as Williams, I have never thought of death as a "rebirth" of any kind. The way I anticipate most of us would describe death is by saying "we lost someone" which is why Williams perspective shocked me. 

The entire line is written from a perspective that was foreign to me. Being a witness of death is described as being a “midwife”, someone who witnesses birth. 

    This line really captivated me. It makes the pain and suffering that the women in her family felt seem "heroic" as William would describe it. The experience that her family has been through is unimaginable, yet for Williams to be able to word it to sound almost spiritual was interesting. Having included “rebirth” and “souls”, it became easier to see how influenced Williams was by her religion. Maybe this was why my perspective differed so much from Williams. Even Williams grandmother's perspective on surgery felt unique to me. "It is one of the most spiritual experiences you will ever encounter". 

    Having been through surgery myself, even though it wasn't anything like surgery related to cancer, my experience with surgery was scary. To find that someone else described it as having "the arms of god around me" was unusual. I grew up hearing and seeing others pray that a surgery went well, while Williams heard about how it was spiritual. Our different experiences growing up with religion impacted how we perceived certain events, which in Williams case could have a negative effect on the perceiver.

 

     

 


Comments

  1. Catie KrebsFebruary 13, 2022 at 3:12 PM

    Hi Shambhavi! I found your blog post intriguing this week. Although I have never experienced a surgery, I liked how you could relate to Williams piece and it spoke to you in a special way. Great job!

    ReplyDelete
  2. EvaFebruary 13, 2022 at 8:03 PM

    Your take on these lines is wonderful. It didn't hit me nearly as hard, and I'm so glad I could see the beauty in the line that you did, especially when related to your own experience with surgery. But I agree - when I got my own surgery, I really didn't relate it to anything spiritual, either. I digress, though; I also love how you picked apart the words "rebirth" and "souls" and related them to the spiritual theme that was a part of the essay. Once more, great work!

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