[lit-ideas] Re: Sacrifice
- From: Carol Kirschenbaum <carolkir@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 06:46:23 -0800
>Anyone know of examples of intentional self-sacrifice?
ck: As a matter of fact, I've been thinking of one case in particular since
first spying this thread. My father. He decided to forgo heart surgery, thus
giving himself just a year to live, instead of using his and his wife's life
savings for the operation and, if complications ensued, his nursing home
treatment. He reasoned, to me throughout that year, that he would be leaving
his wife in penury and alone to boot, if he didn't survive the surgery.
Without the surgery, he would have to leave her, but at least she wouldn't
be penniless.
My father was 73, and had been an utterly, totally devoted husband for 50
years, but I didn't want him to give up his life for the sake of my mother's
comfort, so I argued with him--the odds were in favor of successful surgery,
he owed it to himself to give life a chance, etc. I'll always remember how
he said to me, "I can't do anything else. You know that."
Right. He couldn't. He'd lived in a self-sacrificing way, frankly. That was
him. He lived for a year, fell ill one night, called the ambulance, and died
of heart failure within hours. My mother didn't acknowledge his sacrifice
for another ten years. She's been lonely but is living in relative comfort,
and I suspect she knows what and who made that possible. Fitting ending for
a real-life love story?
Carol,
for whom marriage feels like prison
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2005 12:46 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Sacrifice
> Marlena brought up the issue of sacrifice and I've been thinking about it
> off and on for the
> last few days.
>
> The fellow who dives into a river to save a stranger isn't planning on
> suicide or
> self-sacrifice; he thinks he will save the stranger.
>
> The same applies to nearly all in the military: they all think they will
> survive the battle
> and the war. If US soldiers knew they were going to certain death in Iraq,
> I seriously doubt
> the US would be able to send them.
>
> Self-sacrifice should apply only those who knowingly go to their death,
> such as Palestinian
> suicide bombers, Japanese kamikaze, Islamic jihad, and others.
>
> But it seems to me that Islamic jihadi don't kill themselves; they believe
> they immediately
> enter into paradise. Okay, we know different, but in the mind of the
> jihadi as he pushes the
> button, he isn't killing himself.
>
> I can't think of any modern intentional suicidal self-sacrifice, asides
> from kamikaze. As
> for kamikaze, I don't know enough about them to say anything about their
> intentions.
>
> >
> yrs,
> andreas
> www.andreas.com
>
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