HW 22 - Illness & Dying Book Part 1

My Brother
by Jamaica Kincaid
The Noonday Press 1997

Precis:

Jamaica Kincaid doesn’t know why but she choose to go to Antigua to visit her brother who was dyeing of AIDS, and leave her family in the US. Her emotions on why she is there sway. The trip is demonstrating her confusing relationship with her mother.

"When I saw my brother again after a long while, he was lying in a bed in the Holberton Hospital, in the O'Reilly ward, and he was said to be dying of AIDS. He was not born in this hospital. Of my mother's four children, he was the one born at home" p.3

It is curious how people always tend to relate the end of someones life to the beginning of someones life. Often authors chose to connect the end of a story to the beginning. I suppose it leads to closure. This seems to be a dominant practice in our culture. When I went to my great grandfathers funeral the first thing that was mentioned was the date of his birth and the location of his birth. I have always wondered if this is an attempt to sum up someones life or if it is just an ice breaker.

"In that dirty room, other people before him had died of that same disease. It is where they put people who are suffering from the virus that causes AIDS. When he was first told that he had tested positive for the virus, he did not tell our mother the truth, he told her he had lung cancer, he told someone els he had bronchial asthma, but he knew my mother knew and anyone els who was interested would know that only people who tested positive for the AIDS virus were places in that room were in isolation." p.23

Jamaica Kincaid seems to be upset about how they isolated her brother. Which brings up an other question about the social norms of illness and dying, Why do hospitals have a separate ward for people  who are terminally ill, even if the percents are not infected with a contagious disease?

"He said that people who are not HIV-positive give up too soon on the people who are, but he tries to keep everybody alive, because you never know when a cure might come along. He said that-- you never knew when a cure might come along-- and i could not tell if, he was asserting native Antiguan foolishness or faith in science." p.35

Jamaica Kincaid was critiquing the way doctors have "faith in science." When someone is terminally ill, was the only reason to keep them in a hospital is to stretch whats left of their life with the hope that there will be a cure to the disease. Jamaica Kincaid seems critical of her family and all Antigenes. 

The way Jamaica Kincaid openly discusses the way it felt to observe her brother die, reminds me of how I believe my grandmother felt when she was observing the death of her brother. My grandmother felt more obligated to spend time with him then Jamaica Kincaid. But I know that it was easer for my grandmother to take care of him then it was for Jamaica Kincaid.