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acceptance achieved by self-reflexively acknowledging that his promiscuity was
responsible for his contracting AIDS.
Matousek’s memoir, however, reflects a hohstic, task-based approach to dying,
rather than viewing dying as a stage process. In particular, Matousek’s striving for
spiritual enhghtenment typifies Corr’s observation that addressing the spiritual
needs of the terminally ill is a vital task to be performed. He notes that the spiritual
dimension in hving concerns hope, a key element in coping. “Dying persons and
others who are coping with dying need not be without hope,” Corr writes. “They
can, in fact, be hopeful...in ways that are often a source of awe to those around
them. At bottom, hope involves faith and trust, again, not just in a formally rehgious
sense. In contrast to wishing, hope is grounded in reality” (87). Through his
immersion in Eastern Indian philosophy, Matousek regained hope, despite his
medical plight, in the recognition of the interconnectedness of hfe. Infused with a
philosophy that held that the “pine tree, horse, mountain, (and) me” are all fashioned
from the same substance, Matousek found comfort and hope even in the face of
pending death. Despite the fact that the AIDS virus was lurking in his body, the
world for Matousek seemed lucid, cohesive, and live. “We had been set up to make
a false choice — between our minds and our mystery,” he concludes. “What a
rehef it was to realize now that they were the same thing” (260).
Arizona State University
Dennis Russell
Works Cited
Corr, Charles A. “A Task-Based Approach to Coping with Dying.” Omega 24 (1991-92): 81-94.
Kastenbaum, Robert, and Sharon Thuell. “Cookies Baking, Coffee Brewing: Toward a Contextual
Theory of Dying.” Omega 31: 3 (1995): 175-87.
Kubler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death and Dying. New York: Touchstone, 1969.
Matousek, Mark. Sex Death Enlightenment. New York: Riverhead, 1996.
Michaels, Eric. Unb ecoming. Durham: Duke UP, 1990.
Monette, Paul. Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1988.
Vaucher, Andrea R. Muses from Chaos and Ash: AIDS, Artists and Art. New York: Grove Press, 1993.