Extra Credit Blog

For the extra credit I read, "Death Watch" by Aimee Bender. This is a story about ten men who are told that they only have two weeks to live. Some men are angry, others are sad, one is happy and another does not have any reaction at all. All the men react differently and do different things on their last two weeks. Soon after, the doctors seemed to have made a mistake and only two of the five crying men are actually going to die. The one starts a new life because he realized what he was missing out on. The other continues his regular life and just says that it was a close call. The other was unable to be reached because he was in Greece living the rest of his life. After three years and realizes he is not going to die, he starts a new life in Denver. In the end some of the men died when they were told, others before and some lived longer than expected.

Like all of Bender's stories, there is a moral embedded in the story. I feel like this is a very important one because it talks about living your life to the fullest. The men were told when they were going to die and they all had different reactions to that, however the doctors messed up and were not actually sure when they were all going to die. I feel like Bender is trying to tell us to just live our life, knowing that we are not going to live forever. We obviously can not live everyday like it's our last or else we would spend all our money and not have a job but we should live our life so that we are happy because we never now when were are going to die. Like the doctors say that can not account for murder or accidents so they are not sure when the men are actually going to die, but we should live by doing things we like and by living with people we love.