In the story “On the Fear of Death,” I believe the author's main purpose was to describe how death has evolved over time. I saw how things changed over time and the differences between how people used to do things and now. I agree with her because of how she describes different experiences regarding death, such as how it affects the family in different ways, how modern medicine has prolonged death, and the lack of personalization of the dying person. In the book, she also describes how, even though we experience death and everyone dies, we still have a hard time accepting it when it happens. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay While reading this story, I was excited about the psychological effects of family members in the home. I found it fascinating that the author said, "The child who angrily wishes his mother would drop dead because he didn't have her needs met will be greatly traumatized by his mother's actual death." Even if his event is not closely timed with his destructive wishes. He will always be partly or entirely responsible for the loss of his mother. (Kubler-Ross 91) I knew that if it happened in time, the child would feel this way, but it was a shock to me when I discovered that he could still feel this way after a long period of time. Another example is family members who are constantly fighting; they tend to place all the blame on themselves when their partner dies. The guilt and regret they feel because they weren't nice to each other also has the feeling that if they had been nice, maybe this situation wouldn't have happened. I also believe that medicines have prolonged the lives of human beings. People are living longer than previous generations because scientists have created new vaccines to help prevent children from contracting a disease that could lead to death. They have created treatments to help heal people when they have car accidents, broken bones, surgeries, or cancer. Modern medicine has helped prolong life. When a person becomes ill, most of the time, the family lacks personalization towards the dying person. They do this for many reasons, one being selfishness. This happens so often because we're not yet ready to say goodbye to the person we love forever. Another reason is that we forget to ask the patient what they want instead of doing what we think is right. For example, the author states that “when a patient is seriously ill, they are often treated as a person not entitled to an opinion. It is often someone else who decides if, when and where a patient should be hospitalized. It doesn't take much to remember that the sick person also has feelings, wishes and opinions, and above all has the right to be heard." (Kubler-Ross 94) We allow our selfishness to interfere with the fact that the patient may want something different because we want our loved one to be healed. Because we do this, we make our loved ones uncomfortable. An example: my grandmother was sick throughout my life, she was always in and out of the hospital. A few weeks before she died, doctors had described her condition and informed my family and I that we didn't have much time left with her. They gave us some options to try to prevent this from happening..