In four pages the process of death is discused in which the dying person's social obligations conclude while the family's obligations of vigilance increases in order to make the transition more comfortable for the ailing family member. There are three bibliographic sources cited.
Name of Research Paper File: AM2_PPdeath4.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
The term "death" is used to describe the process of the termination of life. The term entails much more from a
societal standpoint, however, than the absence of the life force which we equate with the living entity. Death is a process in which the living end their societal obligations.
With the slow subsidence of those particular obligations, however, other obligations are instigated. These obligations are not born out by the individual who is in the process of
dieing, of course, but instead by those who continue to live. These obligations have varied, however, over time and culture. In many aspects of our modern society death
has become more of a clinical topic than a personal and spiritual one. To more traditional societies, however, the process of death is one in which family members not
only are expected to but want to provide the structure which they feel best allows their loved one to transition from the physical world to the living world. In
clinical terms this level of commitment is referred to as family vigilance. Family vigilance extends, of course, past the point of death as well. It is, after all,
the family who is charged either directly or indirectly with putting the body to rest once the life force has passed on. Family
vigilance is the protective involvement of family members who stay at the side of their dieing loved one during the process of death and sometimes even after the process has
been completed. This vigilance occurs in all settings, of course, but in the technologically advanced world in which we live it can most often be observed in the hospital