Ordinary People

By 2020 the world’s population could well have doubled to around 12 billion people. Are there just too many people in the world, or is it a question of a better and fairer distribution of the world’s resources?”

The question is asking if there are too few resources available for the increasing population, or if there are just too many people in the world. The keywords in the question are population and resources. By population, the question is referring to the number of people in the world and by resources; it is asking if there are enough natural assets, such as water, food, oxygen and space. The problems caused by an increasing population include the depletion of natural resources, such as non-renewable energy supplies, and food supplies. Currently resources, and population are very unevenly spread and most supplies occur in areas where they are not needed.

Mankind has reached the point of the exponential curve. Earths population doubled in the 40-year period from 1960 to 2000, from 3 billion to 6 billion. In the last two years, the population has grown another third of a billion people. That offers the possibility of a doubling time of only 27 years to reach 12 billion. Partly as a result of this, it is reported that 420 million people live in countries that no longer have enough cropland to grow their own food. They have to rely on imports. The reduction of cropland could be caused by an increase in pollution, creating negative effects on the environment, or it could be due to the expansion of urban areas due to an increasing population.

A quarter of the developing world’s cropland is being degraded, and the rate is increasing. The greatest threat may not be shortage of land, but a shortage of water. More than half a billion people live in areas prone to droughts. In the next twenty years, that number will increase five times, to between 2.4 billion and 3.4 billion people. Currently, that means half of Earth’s population will run out of water within 20 years. It is impossible to farm animals and grow crops without water, which will therefore lead to a decrease in food availability, especially in areas already suffering from famines.

A recent report, released by the World Watch Institute, declares that, “Mining consumes 10% of the world’s energy, spews out toxic emissions, and threatens 40% of the world’s undeveloped forests.” These effects could be drastically reduced but, unfortunately, governments are not moving quick enough to stem the tide. This indicates that it is suspected that a major contributing factor to the problem is the attitudes of people. Very few governments are taking radical measures in an attempt to prevent the foreseen problems of the future. The reason for this is that because the problems are not yet taking a huge effect, by the time the effect becomes apparent it will be too late, and any attempts at solving the problem will be useless.

One of the great challenges for governments is to help their poorest citizens feel secure in their own homes, make a living and improve their environment. Around 1.2 billion people live in absolute poverty – surviving on less than a dollar a day. As populations spiral upward, the underground water tables are dropping. Many regions face severe drought. Deserts are growing. Forests are being cut down and the land they leave behind is wasting away. Since forty percent of all vegetable and grain food supplies come from irrigated land, a failing water supply creates sever food shortages.

Many countries are facing water shortages in the twenty-first century, especially India, whose population passed one billion in May 2002. They are currently expanding by 18 million per year. Water withdrawals now double the environments ability to re-supply. Half of India’s grain harvest comes from irrigated land.

World Watch reports, “In a country where 53 percent of all children are already malnourished and underweight, a shrinking harvest could increase hunger-related deaths.”

Another threat is shrinking croplands. Some nations already depend almost entirely upon imported food. Eventually, the food will simply not be available to those nations. First, increased costs will drain those nations of their economic cash flows, and one day, the exporting nations will not be able to supply food at any price. Among the countries where shrinking croplands threaten food supplies are Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Pakistan. Nigerias population will increase from its present 111 million to a estimated 244 million by 2050, while its grain-land per person will stay the same. That means each person will have less than half the current supply. Pakistan is expected to grow from its current 146 million to 345 million by 2050. By that time, each person will be dependent upon a piece of grain-land the size of a tennis court. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan already import 70 percent of their grain.

Water supplies are fixed by nature. They cannot be increased. On the other hand, an ever-increasing population can deplete them. This is also true of croplands.

I feel that although an increasing population is having a drastically negative effect upon the depletion of the world’s resources, and that resources are clearly unfairly distributed. It is the richest and relatively most sparsely populated countries, particularly Western Europe and America that receive the highest share of the world’s natural resources. This is because they are the richest countries and can therefore afford to grow their own resources as well as import others, yet offer very little money for them.

The effect this has is that the worlds resources are being unfairly relocated into the richest countries where it could be claimed that they are being wasted. It is clear that the richest countries currently have an excess of resources that they could share across the world to help combat the problem stated by the question. The problem with this is that it is non-profitable and the countries would lose a lot of money, which in a materialistic world is more important than tackling issues of poverty and malnutrition.

The term imbalance refers to a difference between the population’s demands for food and the actual food supply. It is estimated that the current population of the earth is six billion people.

There are two main theories that relate to population growth and food supply, these being the “Malthusian theory” and the “Boserup theory”. Thomas Malthus was an English clergyman and economist who lived from 1766 to 1834; Malthus expressed a pessimistic view over the dangers of overpopulation. He believed that the food supply was the main limiting factor to population growth. He also believed that human population increases geometrically whereas food supplies can only grow arithmetically. A Danish economist put the optimistic theory together in 1965 her name was Esther Boserup. She believed that an increase in population would stimulate technologists to increase food production. The sentence “Necessity is the mother of invention” sums up the Boserup theory.

Agricultural Responses

The green revolution is a worldwide agricultural movement but it all started in Mexico in 1944 and it involved the simultaneous development of 2 things; these include:

• New varieties of food plants.
• Altered agricultural practises that greatly increase crop yields.

When the green revolution started in Mexico in 1944, it was importing half its wheat but twenty years later it was able to export half a million tons of wheat due to the green revolutions effectiveness. Even though in theory it achieved what it was set up to do it still had many disadvantages. Many farmers who invested heavily in the new technologies brought in from the western world found themselves laden with massive debts. An example of this is the Punjab area of India where the debt in rural areas has run to a staggering fifty billion rupees. Also excessive pumping has led to a drop in groundwater and the water has become saline. Other problems cased by the green revolution include:

• Human population growth
• Diminished “biodiversity” in crops
• Inherent soil fertility and water quality
• Pesticides
• Land degradation

Demographic Response

A demographic response to over population is China’s one child policy. This policy was brought in by the communist government in 1979 to try and reduce China’s ever-growing population. To aid this policy they brought in a law limiting a couple to only have one child. There are exceptions to this law ethnic minority are formal exceptions and families that produce a child with a mental or physical disabilities are sometimes allowed to have a second child. There is also financial incentives for couples to remain childless of only have one child. This however has had some very serious implications these include:

• Human rights issues
• Female infanticide
• Sex imbalance
• Aging population

The policy is also difficult to enforce in rural areas where the policy is more open to corruption as large families are needed to support their parents in old age. Sometimes pregnant women would even be sent to relatives so that a child would be unregistered.

This policy has proven to be fairly successful as it has managed to reduce population growth so that the population is remaining stable however it has not managed to reduced the population and it is not meeting its targets.

My conclusion is that both approaches to tackling this global problem have positives and negatives to be taken from them. But on the whole they are causing more problems than they are solving so therefore I believe that both solutions are failing.

China, the second larges country in the world, is facing a serious problem — ageing population. Before 1979, when Mao was the chairman of China, he persuaded women to have lots of babies in order to finish his plan – the Great Leap Forward. This is the start of the ageing population in China.

In January 1958, Mao launched the second five year plan known as the Great Leap Forward. 1Mao wanted China to become a world power. He wanted to catch up with the west by ending Chinese dependence upon agriculture. His aim was to catch up with UK in the industry products in ten years time and with America in 15 years time. In order to do this, he will need lots of peasants but many of them die during this progress. This is why Mao encouraged women to have lots of children. In the DTM, the birth rate at stage 2 and 3 are both very high and this is due to requirement of Mao. China’s population base increased “only” by another 100,000,000 on top of its 432,000,000 base.2 The magnitude of China total population increase so much that even the People’s Republic of China found it hard to support.

This is when One Child Policy (ICP) came in to control the over growing population. ICP is the birth control policy of the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)3. When Deng Xiao Ping took over the power at 1978, he realized the overpopulation is a roadblock to economic development and also the death rate will increase due to the lack of food and water, then he came out with the ICP idea. In general, this policy is very successful because the birth rate has been reduced gradually starting at the middle of stage 3 in the DTM. The 1982 fertility survey shows the total fertility rate falling from around 6.0in the mid-1950s to well below 4.0in 19614. However, ICP leads to some other problem such as the ageing population.

Since the ICP is introduced, the population has successfully decreased. However, the infant mortality increases at the same time. This is because as a Chinese tradition, the boys carry the family name but now, the families are only allow to have one child therefore the chance of having a boy is less then before. Because of this, some families may choose to kill the baby if it’s a girl in order to carry the family name. This is not the only effect of ICP, since most families choose to have a boy rather than a girl, there will be more males than female in the future. The difference will also increase as the time pass by.

As years go by, the medical care develops a lot in China therefore the life expectancy increase at the same time. Since the birth rate was so high is 1960s but then decrease so much when ICP is introduced, there are depend people then independent people. This slows down the economic development of China. When there are more dependent then the government will need to pay more than it earns. Since the dependent people can not earn their own living, the government will have to give them money and because the numbers of dependent people are so many, the money that was given to the dependents is more than the money China earns.

The birth rate keeps dropping in China is due to one other main reason – as most of the people are now educated, they understand that if you want to raise up your children as best as you can, one child is more than enough. Also, the cost of having two children is normally too expensive for lower or middle classes. The time that is taken to look after them is too much if both parents are working. These are the main reasons why most of the parents choose not to have more than one child.

In conclusion, China has an ageing population a problem is because the birth rate was really high when Mao was the chairman but then it decreases so much that ICP was introduced. The differences between that get worse and develop as the ageing population. Because of this problem, the economic developments is held back since the input and output is not balance due to part of the income is given to those dependent people. The death rate will increase dramatically when the dependent people die. This will affects reputation of China too.

In the 1950’s China, under the government weakened by its countries opium dependence to westerners, the idea still existed that, “A large population gives a strong nation”

This led to China’s population growing very rapidly, so rapidly in fact that this phrase was beginning to prove in correct. As china’s population struggled to feed it’s self, as well as extreme overcrowding especially in its cities.

The death rate in China dropped (except for a blip in the natural decrease caused by a minor famine in the 1960’s) and its birth rate continued to grow rapidly. Even after the government implemented tolerant population control policies, for example the “later longer fewer policy”. The hope was that if people were encouraged to wait longer before marrying, they would have children later in life and therefore is much more likely to have fewer children. However, this did not produce dramatic enough results to help slow China’s rapidly growing population and end its pending famine crisis. This is probably due to:

• People were still living in a very traditional way. This meant that people, especially those living in rural areas, they had big families. To make up for what was ah high infant mortality rate, during famine years.
• Women were not educated, and were considered the inferior sex whose job was in the home. They had no career so their only job was in the home.
• Being a developing country, and at that time very anti- western ideas, and almost fearful of the western world, Chinese people had little or no access to contraception, and even less education on birth control and family planning.
• No state pension meant that elderly people had to rely on their children to provide for them in their old age. So to be insured of safe elderly years they had to have at least one child who survived childhood and grew up to make an income. In this case boys were preferred, as they could have a paid job, not one in the home.
• A Cultural Revolution made the population increase by 55 million every three years; this is nearly the same as the entire population of the UK.

In the 1959 to 1961, a famine caused but an Industrial Revolution triggered the government to launch its first population control policies. People moved away from rural areas and their traditional work as farmers to towns and cities, to work in factories, often owned by western countries brought to china by cheap labour costs compared to the western world. This influx of western ideas thwarted the government’s campaign, as the later longer fewer Policy was not considered attractive by the Chinese population who moved towards a western ideal.

But the government continued and by 1970, State Family Programmes had been introduced. This lowered the population growth rate. In 1978 3 children per family was average but the government persisted, as this was still too many. This was in the form of various advertising campaigns, however their effect was not dramatic enough, and in 1979, the government wished to stamp out population growth completely. So they introduced a strict population policy.

The policy used a “carrot and stick” method to encourage families who participated, and punish those who did not. Encouragement was in the form of great incentives from the government. These included free education for the child, priority housing, family benefit and a state pension for the family. There were also high penalties for having a second child. Including loss of all incentives, and benefits and fines of up to 15% of the family’s annual income. This more than halved the birth rate per thousand from 40 per thousand to 17 per thousand. But the government continued further, the legal age for marriage was raised to 22 for men and 20 for women, to marry couples also had to apply to the state for permission. State permission was also required to have a child. Abortions became compulsory for the second pregnancy.

China’s population policy had been very successful at reducing population growth, it met targets set for 2000 in 1994. However the population policy had serious implications for the natural balance of population. The Chinese population has an entire generation of “little emperors” the title given to the supposedly spoiled, greedy, bad-tempered, lazy children of male only children. More seriously as young men this generation has difficulty finding a wife. This is a result of Chinese ideal of male supremacy. Families would try and find out the gender of the child before it was born, with the option to terminate if it was a girl. If a families first born child was female, it was at times abandoned so that the couple could try again for a boy.

The Chinese government also commissioned teams to go from village to village providing a sterilisation service. This at times was a very unfair method and often breached human rights. As the teams were paid by the number of operations they carried out. So often women were sterilised against their will. In China’s anti-feminist society it was almost always that women were sterilised instead of men.

The government would defend their actions saying that there was a serious need for rapid population control or there would have been further suffering to the people. Credit can be given that the scheme worked and met target before time.

Today regulations on population control have been relaxed mainly due to the fact that all targets have been met. But also because of pressure from the west. This is mainly in rural areas of china where children are still a useful form of labour on farms, so two children is permitted. But in industrial regions one child is still most likely. Sterilisation is now provided in a manner that is less likely to be damaging and in breach of human rights.

All communities in developed countries, such as Australia, are divisions that constantly change to suit their environment, the environment meaning the demographics of its citizens. A community is a group of people that share a common belief or interest. Over the last sixty years, Australian communities have changed due the varied population and migration policies now enforced. As time goes on, communities will change at an increasing rate.

The demographics of a community often control the type of community that will exist: how it will operate. Generally, demographics show the age, status and education that exists within a community. For example, a less isolated, inner-city, urban area will have a generally high education, good job and high standard of living. Ofcourse, a community will attract people of the same background.

Another important factor in a community is the technology that is available. The access to technology illustrates the type of background and plays a vital role in a community’s development. The lack of technology in rural communities is what often makes them feel very isolated from the outside world. On the other hand, an urban community will have technology that will help them in everyday life and connect them with the rest of the globe.

The population of Australia is constantly changing. Like many other countries, it is divided into rural and urban population. The nation has seen a devastating change in population density in rural areas. Residents of rural areas are involved in primary activities such as farming, fishing and mining. The existence of a drought has repelled people from rural areas, making them move to urban areas. This type of migration is called . As a result, urban areas are experiencing a change in the make-up of communities.

The indigenous people of Australia are of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent. After European settlement, the size of the indigenous population declined dramatically. However, this has all changed in the past 60 years. At the end of the 1960’s, the indigenous population was at a steady 90, 000 – 100, 000. However, since 1971, the indigenous population has increased to over 400, 000.

Migration is the movement of people from one location to another. Overtime, the number, countries of origin and reasons for migrating to Australia has changed. For example, a woman in the 1950’s would have migrated to Australia perhaps to escape war, and could have been from a variety of countries. Nowadays, people migrate to Australia for family or job opportunities, and many come from Europe. In the past 60 years, the proportion of overseas born residents in Australia has increased by 12%. These changes started after World War II, when many Australians feared an invasion from countries to the North. One of these countries was Japan, whose navy proposed an invasion in 1942.

In Australia, people are employed in 4 main work sectors: Primary, Secondary, Tertiary and Quaternary. In the middle of the twentieth century, service jobs in the tertiary and quaternary industries began to expand. By 1954, there were more workers providing services than there were providing goods.

Employment patterns of men and women have changed over the last 25 years. Significantly, the proportion of women who were employed has increased over the period. Changing social attitudes and smaller families have contributed to these changes in women’s employment. Greater proportions of women now have higher education qualifications. Education appears to draw women into the workforce by instilling in them more career related attitudes and by enhancing their potential wages in the labour market. Paid work may also provide women with opportunities for social interaction and job satisfaction.

However, it is women who continue to carry the greater responsibility for caring and other unpaid work, effectively placing them under increased time pressures. Women’s working patterns may impact on their ability to balance work with other responsibilities.

Marriage trends in Australia have changed increasingly in the past few decades. Proportion of couples marrying in 2004 who lived together before the wedding: 75 per cent; in the 1970s: 16 per cent. The average age at marriage for men in Australia in 2001 was 31, compared to 26 years old in 1981. For women in Australia the average age at marriage in 2001 was 29, compared to the average age of 23 in 1981. Proportion of couples in Australia living together in 2004 who are married: 87.6 per cent.

All in, all out, Australia can only go uphill from here. The Great Southern Land, The Land Down Under…Terra Australis is and continues to be in, just after Paradise.

Defining a Vulnerable Population A vulnerable population is any group that has been identified by an epidemiological or there study that classifies them at a higher risk than the general population from a specific or broad condition (Oxford Reference Online, 2011). The elderly population is considered a vulnerable population because they must face not only self-image disturbances related to an aging body, but also problems with mental and spiritual well -being as well. Barriers older adults must face are generated by these issues.

Barriers of a Vulnerable Population According to Smith, et. Al (2010), is important for community and local governments to the aging population and provide age-friendly services (p. 15). As the population continues to grow, change, and age, there are numerous barriers the elderly face. Financially, the elderly population Is mostly surviving on a fixed or limited Income making It difficult at times to afford prescriptions. Doctor visits, and other healthcare related expenses. All of these issues place them in a state of vulnerability.

Impaired or limited mobility creates yet another barrier especially for the elderly related to the side effects of an aging body. Consequently, they are more prone and apt to have injuries from falls leading to other serious debilitating healthcare issues. Many of the elderly population do not have the ability to drive safely or access to a vehicle due to their compromised health Issues related to aging such as poor vision, Alchemies, and severe arthritis: transportation becomes another barrier. According to Smith, et. L (2010), without proper transportation in place, communities will have a higher incidence of injuries and increased emergency response costs. Life experiences with Vulnerable Persons My parents are both of the elderly population. They both suffer from symptoms of an aging body. My dad Is hard of hearing, has chronic renal failure, terribly severe artless, thinning skin, and Impaired vision. My mother has Just recovered to a double knee replacement surgery because she had become immobile related to her severely arthritic knees.

I have spent several years caring for them both and helping them through these difficult times of aging. I have noticed various discriminations by society of the elderly and the poor attitude towards them. People have very little patience, understanding, and compassion. I have also seen the moments of sadness, frustration, and depression that my parents have encountered related to having to race ten Tact’s Nat teeny are aging; teeny are no longer addle to phonically ay want teeny used to be able to do and think that they can still do.

This has been the hardest for me to witness because I can remember when they were able to do anything they wanted to physically. They have both overcome many barriers, but continue to be vulnerable and I know that they’re level of vulnerability will continue to increase with the passing years to come. Knowing this, I continue to learn and look for ways to help and advocate for them. Summary With the aging population, it is important to assess what vulnerabilities the elderly faces and address them to improve the quality of life.

Michael Perry introduces several themes throughout Population: 485. Love, pain and acceptance are all touched upon in his memoir, but one that seems to stick out and is brought up again and again is death. As a volunteer firefighter, most of the connections he makes with the people of his community are caused by responding to emergency accident and fire calls- many of which result in death. In our culture, and every culture, death is an inevitable fact of life. We all, at some point in our lives, are going to encounter the death of someone close to us.

Whether it will be a family member, friend or ourselves, young or old, it is going to happen and we will have to face it. Death affects everyone differently and the way we cope with loss varies with every person and with every culture. When the majority of us think of death, we see someone old and sick, frail and weak. While mourning the loss of a loved one is never easy, regardless of age or cause of death, losing a young friend or family member is an even more challenging reality to face. It is often the unexpected losses that don’t make sense. We ask ourselves “Why? ” “Why did this happen? and try to bring meaning to the tragedy. “Surely we can’t die just because we hit a patch of pebbles on a curve. Surely there is preordination in the pea gravel. We are creatures of myth, hungry for metaphor and allegory, but most of all, hungry for sense. ” (p. 132). This is one of the ways our culture copes with death. We refuse to believe that a young person could die so quickly and meaninglessly and we are swift to find a reason behind it all. In reality though, there is no answer. Seven years ago a close friend of mine died due to injuries caused by a motorcycle accident. He was twenty years old.

It was a painful experience that left me questioning my faith and asking why such a good person was taken away at such a young age. I did try to find reasoning behind it, but never really came up with an answer. I cried for weeks, for hours at a time. I couldn’t stop thinking about how real this was, how I was never going to see his face or hear his voice again. So many things in life he didn’t get a chance to experience. I longed to go back in time to find a way to prevent his final outcome, but I soon realized there was nothing I could do. His death brought many people close together.

We had huge gatherings, for a couple months after he passed, with all of his friends and family. We told stories and talked about our greatest memories we had with our friend, laughed and cried together. We supported each other, shared our feelings and listened to one another. It was our way to cope with our loss. We soon realized that the world doesn’t stop for people to grieve, so after a while, the parties died down and we all got back to our normal routines. Life forces you to get it together and to move on and time heals all wounds. I now hold my friend as a memory and know that I will see him again someday.

We often see this in our culture. People come together to help each other through hard times. Emotional support and counseling are other ways people in our culture cope with death. This memory has been triggered by the story Michael Perry tells of Tracy Rimes. Tracy was killed in a motor vehicle accident while taking a corner too fast or too wide. She was just a teenager, not even graduated from high school. Parts of her story are brought up again and again by the author throughout the book. I think this incident got to him and he had a hard time coping with this one. Maybe it was because she was so young with a lot of life ahead of her.

Maybe it marks a milestone or turning point for him. “Today we had tragedy, but it was our tragedy, and we dealt with it not only as public citizens, but also as friends and neighbors… To feel at home is a rare, precious thing, and I began to feel at home that day. ” (p. 16). It was the day he made his connection and found his place. Maybe he relates aspects of the incident to his own life. In chapter one there is a paragraph where he is talking about the accident and he describes how the girl was “pinned in silence” after the violent squalling, glass exploding, rubber tearing, steel tumbling and then just stillness. As if peace is the only answer to destruction… The girl is terribly, terribly alone in a beautiful, beautiful world. ” (p. 4). He describes the land and nature so much in the book with such life and love, and also comes off as kind of an outsider always looking in, trying to find a place to belong. Does he too feel terribly, terribly alone in a beautiful, beautiful world? I think this is another way to cope with death. Find a positive outcome from a tragedy. Death can make a person stronger. It can make someone open there eyes to life and not take it for granted.

It can make someone open their doors a little wider to friends and family and let people in. Michael shares a lot of stories throughout his book that involve the unexpected deaths he has encountered. In fact, he has seen a dead person so many times he says, “I can look at you and know exactly what you would look like dead. ” (p. 128). I can relate to this in a way. While I have never imagined what the person sitting next to me will look like when they’re dead, I have also seen many a corpse. It comes as part of the package when you choose a career in healthcare.

I have worked as a respiratory therapist for four years now in a hospital. We respond to all the codes and traumas that come in and are basically responsible for a person’s airway. We also manage the ventilators and occasionally have to “pull the tube” when it has been determined that the ventilator is just prolonging the dying process, if that is what the family wishes. At first, it was hard for me to deal with the situations. I would go home still thinking about that pale, lifeless body. I couldn’t get the voices out of my head of the family screaming the patients name and crying and praying.

It all got to me. I cried the first few times, but then I quickly learned that you have to somehow detach yourself from the emotional aspect of the situation, sort of take your mind somewhere else for a minute than get back to reality, like the author seems to do in his writing. Now, after seeing so many, a dead body doesn’t even phase me. It’s no big deal anymore to respond to a code, perform CPR, suction nasty stuff from an endotracheal tube that’s deep in the throat of a patient covered in blood and bowel… and then go eat lunch. Sounds gross, but it’s our job. You just learn to block certain things out.

I think Michael uses his ability and love for writing as a way to cope with death. He seems like sort of a loner, maybe he doesn’t feel comfortable talking with someone about what he’s thinking or feeling, so he writes stories and anecdotes about them. The way he starts a story of one his calls, than jumps to a completely different subject, and then later returns to finish the story maybe is a reflection of another way he handles death. It’s like he takes a break for a minute and shifts his thoughts somewhere else, so that he can return to the facts of the story, and not be interrupted by emotions.

I think writing or keeping a journal with our own stories, thoughts and emotions is another way our culture copes with death too. I think death is an aspect of our culture that we don’t much like to talk about, or think about. We know that we are all going to someday die, and that everyone we know will too someday pass, but it is much more comfortable to take for granted tomorrow. Death is something that could potentially happen to anyone, at any given moment and I think it is our avoidance of death that creates such grief when the death of a loved one comes unexpectedly.

For me, it’s the unknown part of the afterlife that scares me. That and the thought of not being with my children. In the book, Michael Perry shares his own feelings of dying. He brings the reader to the woods, where he feels that sleeping in the presence of the trees and in the dirt joins him with the earth and gives him a sense of what it is to be holy. “I have come to think of my sleeps in the forest as a rehearsal for burial…” (p. 140). He gives the impression that he is prepared for death and that we should ponder upon the fact that it is coming.

Not how or where or why, just the simple truth that we will be gone someday and it may seem less discomforting if we just accept the fact and “give it a nod now and then. ” (p. 140). Death can get to be a very sensitive subject in our world today. It means so many diverse things to different people and cultures and is handled in your own way by each individual. For the most part, I think coping with the loss of a loved one comes down to a person’s individual beliefs, traditions, and culture. It is a personal choice whether or not to prepare for and accept death.

Michael Perry brings the subject to your attention several times throughout the book, almost forcing you to think about death. “Be grateful for death, the one great certainty in an uncertain world. Be thankful for the spirit smoke that lingers for every candle gone out. ” (p. 142). We don’t know when or why or how, but death is coming. To you, to me, to everyone someday. It’s a scary thought, but I hope I can build an acceptance to the inevitable fact of life and be at peace with death when it knocks on my door, before it’s too late.