Part 4: "Do Not Go Gentle" by Sherman Alexie

In his account “Do Not Go Gentle” of his baby son’s brush with death, Sherman Alexie writes beautifully about worrying like crazy about his son, and how he learned to conquer this psychological suffering. His beautiful prose shows the powerlessness he felt in the fact of death and grief, for “Mr. Grief was a billionaire. He could afford to check on our baby every six hours” (163). Alexie describes how he sees himself and others being crushed under the weight of grief: he shouts at his wife because he “saw Mr. Grief hiding behind her eyes” (164), and other parents in the hospital spit ugly emotions of cruelty and sad envy because their children are terminally ill. At last he decides to fight Mr. Grief in a showdown to the end, and he and his wife the power of a dildo—Chocolate Thunder—to battle grief, dispelling the staleness of the sick children’s hospital stays and the hopelessness their parents had succumbed to. He proclaims that “we all were sick and tired of waiting for our babies to die” (167), so he, his wife, and Chocolate Thunder finally emerge victorious with both their baby and the magic of belief in their arms.

Sherman Alexie’s story moved me greatly—not only for the profound and personal nature of his writing, but also because of how vulnerable he makes himself in his retelling of this frightening time. The way he describes grief as someone who is actively working against him shows how he personified the feeling inside him and his wife, giving it agency by surrendering his own power. He also describes how much of his power is derived from his Native American background, for his wife is “magic like a grandmother, and Indian grandmothers aren’t afraid of a little man like Mr. Grief,” and it is she who first brandishes Chocolate Thunder like a magic wand. This story shows two things that compose part of the RA role: providing support to our residents especially in times of desperate need like this, but also equipping them with the tools and creativity to combat such pain. We as RAs are famous for being good listeners, so we provide passive support in that way. We also serve as sources of advice and experiential wisdom, as well as knowledge resources for finding things like CAPS, SSAs, etc. Finally, we also should encourage our residents to share their own stories with us and with others for two reasons: they gain deep connections with those whom they trust enough to listen, and they learn much more about their inner feelings and residual conflicts through reflecting on the experience and retelling it.