"My Father/My Husband" by David J. Lawless

     "My Father/My Husband" is a story that portrays the daily lives of an elderly couple; the wife in the story suffers from serious medical issues, including Alzheimer's, dementia, and heart failure. Even though living with someone with conditions as major as those is tough, the husband handles everything calmly and carefully, which shows that Lawless's purpose in writing this essay is to depict a story of martial love. This essay is written for any audience who would enjoy a heartwarming anecdote about a man's love for his wife. "My Father/My Husband" was published in PRISM Magazine, a journal created by the Creative Writing Program of the University of British Columbia; author David J. Lawless won the grand prize in a nonfiction contest held by the magazine.
     Lawless used pathetic appeal in order to achieve his purpose. The affectionate tone used in the essay helps the audience understand how much the husband cares about his wife. For example, even when the wife would wake up at 3 a.m. and not recognize him, he would reassure her and take care of her with compassion and love. Another device that the author used is dialogue. The dialogue in the essay made Lawless's audience understand the emotions his characters were feeling. When the wife asks many questions, like, "Are we in Madrid?" and "Why are my paintings on the wall? This is Madrid. I bought these paintings in Madrid," the reader really understands the confusion the wife is feeling as well as the frustration and exasperation the husband must be feeling after going through the question routine every single day. However, Lawless fully achieves his purpose when highlights the love they feel for each other at the end of the story, when the wife says, "You are not my husband. I never had a husband," and the husband replies with, "Yes, I am." The last line of the story reads, "She kisses his cheek and they both smile," showing that she did recognize him as her husband, and that her affection for him overpowers her confusion.

Dementia

The wife in the story is known to suffer from severe Alzheimer's, a form of dementia. Symptoms of Alzheimer's include confusion, aggression, mood swings, and long-term memory loss, which are definitely issues with which the wife dealt with.

(Source: http://www.healingtalks.com/natural-health-2/aging-longevity/fighting-alzheimers-is-possible-counterpoint-inspiration/)

"How Doctors Die" By Ken Murray

       Ken Murray wrote "How Doctors Die" in order contrast the extent to which doctors go to keep their patients alive with the lack of excessive treatment doctors themselves have when they are about to die. This informative essay goes deeply into the paradox of doctors, patients, and the system. For example, he wrote about his friend Charlie, who was an orthopedist who found a lump in his stomach. When he visited a surgeon, he found that he had pancreatic cancer. Instead of investing his time and money on an expensive and tedious treatment, he "went home the next day, closed his practice, and never set foot in a hospital again." He goes on by underlining that doctors are most likely reluctant to use their procedures on themselves because they know the limits of medicine. When bringing up the act of "futile care," which is when doctors do as much as they can to keep a patient alive, he writes, "All of this occurs... at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars a day. What it buys is misery we would not inflict on a terrorist." Murray wrote this essay to show the irony of the fact that doctors do not want to inflict futile care on themselves.
     Murray is a retired clinical assistant professor at the University of Southern California who uses his personal experiences in his writing. This brings out both a pathetic and ethical appeal because it brings his emotions into play and it shows his audience that he knows what he is talking about. He wrote about his cousin, Torch, who had lung cancer that had spread to his brain. When hearing about the aggressive treatment option that would keep him alive for about four more months, Torch "decided against any treatment and simply took pills for brain swelling." He then moved in with Murray and they spent the next eight months doing what he enjoyed before he passed away peacefully in his sleep. This supports Murray's opinion on the contrast between futile care and no treatment because it shows that when people have no treatment, they end up living a longer and happier couple of last days.

No Code

Some serious patients get stamps saying "No Code" or "Do Not Resuscitate" in order to tell physicians to not perform CPR on them. Murray writes, "I have even seen it as a tattoo."

(Source: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3801624/Gran-has-tattoos-ordering-doctors-not-to-save-her-life.html)

"Objects of Affection" by Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough

     Author Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough starts her essay, "Objects of Affection," by remembering the summers she spent in Kraków, visiting various flea markets and browsing the miscellaneous items she would find there: vintage desks, handmade jewelry, second-hand books, and many other things. She ponders the value of these simple objects, stating, "...in a country that wasn't spared violent entanglements with History... [Those objects] connect us to the past and its messy materiality by making that past more concrete, more tangible." Hryniewicz-Yarbrough goes into deeper detail by recounting her childhood in Poland, "growing up in a communist country beset by shortages of practically everything..." Back then, luxuries were scarce, and people only bought what they needed. She contrasts this environment with modern-day materialism and shows her audience that possessions gain importance when they are put through years of history.
     Hryniewicz-Yarbrough translates many pieces of Polish poetry that have been published in works like The New Yorker. She has also translated full length novels and even published her own works in various publications. Her past accounts have put a pathetic appeal in her essay; she relates the worth of possessions to the passing of her grandmother. When looking at her grandmother's past possessions, she only keeps a paperweight and a few photographs. She writes, "Was the paperweight really an object that was full of memories for me? Not really... it wasn't like those things that overwhelm us with nostalgia when we hold them or look at them." This experience highlights her point that items attain value when they are filled with memories.
    Meant for an audience who are interested in nostalgic, personal stories, "Objects of Affection" meets its purpose because there are many emotion-filled examples of the sentimentality of valuables. In addition to her grandmother's items, Hryniewicz-Yarbrough also writes about a short story called "The Man with the Package." The story tells of a Jew who walks to his death with his valuables: a pair of boots, a spoon, and a knife. Since these items seem trivial, Hryniewicz-Yarbrough's students found the Jew's behavior odd. She finishes her essay by writing, "They hadn't yet learned that objects help us exorcise some of our fears...they give us a semblance of permanence and grant a stay against chaos, darkness, oblivion."

Mute Witnesses

Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough writes about the times she spent at the flea markets in Kraków. Since these objects hail from a country with such a rich history, it is as if they are mute witnesses to human life.

(Source: http://file-magazine.com/citylikeyou/flea-market)

"The Good Short Life" by Dudley Clendinen

     In 2010, Dudley Clendinen was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, a disease which causes motor neurons to slowly die out in the brain and spinal chord. Clendinen wrote this essay when he was sixty-six, and knew that his life will end quickly. When thinking about his end, he wrote about his mother, who spent her last days living dependently and looked at her only son "as she might have at a passing cloud." With these thoughts, Clendinen decided that he did not want to go that way. He wrote this essay in order to show his readers that life is better short and sweet rather than long and painful.
     Clendinen was a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times in Florida and also worked with various other famous newspapers, including The New York Times. His pieces usually touched on aspects of his life: being gay, being an alcoholic, and discovering the meaning of life while diagnosed with a terminal illness. These personal touches bring pathetic appeal to his essay; he writes a great deal about his daughter, Whitney, whom he concludes has a harder time dealing with his disease than he does himself. His tone is accepting, as if he has come to terms with his fate. He writes, "We obsess in this country... About how to live. But we don't talk about how to die. We act as if facing death weren't one of life's greatest, most absorbing thrills and challenges." This essay is written for those who need a new perspective on life, since lately, most people are striving to live longer. Clendinen, on the other hand, realizes, "I don't worry about fatty foods... I don't worry about having enough money to grow old... I want to take the sting out of it, to make it easier to talk about death."
     Clendinen achieved his purpose by reminding his audience to make the most out of both life and death. He connects his ending life to the song "Dance Me to the End of Love" by Leonard Cohen, writing, "When the music stops... I'll know that Life is over." He also points out the irony in his writing: "This is not about one particular disease or even about Death. It's about Life, when you know there's not much left... It's liberating." He restates that his disease makes him think about his death, making him less jaded; he wants to make the most out of his short life.

Farewell

Lou Gehrig joined the New York Yankees in 1923 and had a fantastic career until he fell below .300 in 1938 for the first time in thirteen years. This made it clear there was something wrong. He retired on July 4, 1939 and died almost two years later. In his farewell speech, he concluded saying, "I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for."
(Source: http://espn.go.com/mlb/photos/gallery/_/id/8337212/image/4/lou-gehrig-farewell-game-choice)