After discovering the malignancy in my stomach, my mother effectively chastised herself by asserting that she "should have noticed that I was eating less and getting thinner." She held on to her belief while I tried to assure her that the extent to which the cancer had spread was not her fault. I reminded her that many children are rather lanky and thin when they are growing too rapidly for any food which they eat to transform into fat; the body needs the nourishment to sustain itself, and has no excess for insulating purposes. With time and reassurance, she finally dismissed her guilt; I listened to her statements, returning not with, "You shouldn't feel that way," but with reasons which effectively reinforced the pointlessness of her guilt. As with any invitation to change one's outlook, a person fostering guilt must be shown why his view is unreasonable and needs to be altered. Statements such as "Don't feel guilty" define the desired destination, but offer no direction as to the means of attaining that goal. I have sometimes wondered whether this type of guilt is not merely a subconscious means of inflicting punishment upon ones self in order to more deeply share the pain felt by the ill person. Guilt which is evoked through hateful thoughts or malicious wishes toward the ill person is sometimes more difficult to manage, due to the fervor with which the mental darts were hurled at the patient before the onset of illness. Abreast a wave of superstition, the guilty party quietly blames himself, feeling responsible for the evil which befell his victim. It is important for the guilt-stricken individual to realize he does not control the hands of fate. To further complicate matters, often the dying or deceased individual is surrounded by an aura of purity, and it is deemed unfit to denounce his character despite the validity of the statements. Though loss makes memories all the more dear to the heart, I feel that one should not forget that these people, sick though they are, are human; they possess irksome habits and have made foolish mistakes as does all humanity. To elevate an individual beyond his former limitations is an open invitation toward the housing of personal guilt, since any negative emotions concerning the patient will be thought of as hostile and unfounded; one is not only denying the disturbing propensities of the patient, but also, and more important, he is denying his true feelings, thereby trapping himself. In this scope, I might add that elevating a person who has not yet died can create an undesirable situation for him, in that he may feel threatened by this new and unrealistic public opinion of himself which, consequently, is greater than he is able to uphold.