Well, I hadn't really intended to take the summer "off" from blogging, but that's what actually happened. My wife's illnesses intensified, unfortunately culminating with her passing away August 8th. Her quality of life was so greatly diminished that she was ready, asking the palliative care physician to transfer her to hospice, where she died peacefully with family near. My regular faculty website contains a remembrance.
As I intend to share with my students this semester, death is very much a part of life; our attitudes toward life affect our view of death, and vice-versa. And watching another's reaction toward a loved-one's death teaches more than books or sermons.
So, as I embark upon yet another semester, part of me is, in fact, diminished in a way that can never be restored. Yet those parts remaining can expand and fill in (though not entirely replace) that now-empty space. If our early years together was Spring, the searing heat of my wife'e intense illness was Summer, then I am entering the Autumnal phase of my life.
I will leave to my colleagues in the Sociology discipline to academically examine cultural attitudes toward death; the lesson I hope to teach is more personal and observational.
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