The Death Class: A True Story About Life (36 page)

Psychiatrist’s response:
As
told to author by Jonathan. Conversation was later confirmed in audiotape conversation that Jonathan recorded of the psychiatrist’s response after Josh’s death.

Josh’s suicide:
Recounted by Jonathan in interviews with author. Also used were police reports of his death, which was also documented in Richard Khavkine, “Police ID Man Killed by Train in Linden,”
www.mycentraljersey.com
, January 14, 2009.

Josh’s suicide note:
Copy provided to author.

Caitlin and Norma meeting after Josh’s death:
Reconstructed from interviews with Norma and Caitlin.

Caitlin and Jonathan’s reunion:
Recounted in interviews with both of them.

Funeral services at McCracken Funeral Home:
Recounted by Jonathan and Caitlin. Author also visited funeral home and attended field trips mentioned.

TEN:
Reclamations

“We have just entered our spring semester in the midst of an economic recession”:
Kelly Nemeth,
The Tower,
Jan. 28–Feb. 10, 2009.

Classroom scenes:
Observed by author.

“In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river”:
President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address,
www.whitehouse.gov/blog/inaugural-address
.

Isaiah House makeover:
Witnessed by author. Also used interviews with students and Norma, photographs, and videos.

Background on Becca:
Author’s interviews with Becca, and Norma.

Story of Isis:
As told to author by Isis.

ELEVEN:
Jonathan

Scene of Jonathan speaking to Norma’s Death in Perspective class:
Witnessed by author.

TWELVE:
Caitlin

Caitlin’s mother’s suicide attempt:
As recounted to author by Caitlin the day after.

Caitlin with bandages on hand next day:
Witnessed by author.

Jonathan cradling Caitlin in hallway:
Witnessed by author.

THIRTEEN:
To Serve

“Man
needs
to teach”:
Erikson,
Insight and Responsibility,
131.

Jonathan’s visit to Northern State Prison:
Witnessed by author.

Jonathan’s visit to Trenton Psychiatric Hospital:
Witnessed by author.

New Jersey’s mental health system:
Susan Livio, “A Call for Psych Workers Who Are Better Qualified,”
The Star-Ledger,
March 29, 2009; Alison Evans Cuellar and Deborah Haas-Wilson, “Competition and the Mental Health System,”
American Journal of Psychiatry
166, no. 3 (March 1, 2009): 273–283; Mary Ann Spoto, “Lawmakers Seek a Mental Health System Overhaul,”
The Star-Ledger,
Oct. 6, 2008; Bob Brau, “A Professor Teaches What’s Wrong with Prisons,”
The Star-Ledger,
June 26, 2008; “Trenton Psychiatric Hospital Celebrates 160th Anniversary,”
US Fed News,
May 19, 2008; Alan Guenther, “Admission, Then Death at Psychiatric Hospital,”
Asbury Park Press
, Feb. 17, 2008; “Overhaul State’s Mental Health Services,”
Home News Tribune,
January 27, 2008.

Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in Parsippany:
Robert Hanley, “Troubled Center for Mentally Ill Will Be Closed in New Jersey,”
The New York Times,
April 29, 2000.

Jonathan and Caitlin’s presentation on mental health:
Witnessed by author. The presentation slides can be seen at
www.slideshare.net/jonsteingraber/brainstorming-session-at-kean
.

FOURTEEN:
Roadblocks

Norma’s car accident:
Recounted by Norma, Norm, and Becca.

“I was in the bathroom over my dead baby girl’s body”:
From letter provided to author.

FIFTEEN:
Parting Ways

Information in chapter drawn primarily from interviews with Jonathan and Caitlin.

Jonathan’s message to Norma:
Provided to author.

SIXTEEN:
Epiphanies

Information in chapter drawn primarily from interviews with Caitlin.

SEVENTEEN:
Road Trip

Native Americans in South Dakota:
Chris Rodda, “Emergency
Help Desperately Needed to Heat Homes on the Pine Ridge Reservation,” The Huffington Post, Jan. 27, 2010; navajo, “Emergency Help Desperately Needed to Heat Homes on the Pine Ridge Reservation,” Daily Kos, Jan. 29, 2010. Keith Olbermann MSNBC clips:
www.dailykos.com/story/2010/02/10/835966/-Keith-Olbermann-Links-to-Two-More-Donation-Links-for-S-D-Rezs
, Feb. 8, 2010.

“The instinctual power behind various forms of selfless ‘caring’ potentially extends to whatever a man generates and leaves behind”:
Erikson,
Insight and Responsibility,
131.

Visit to Virginia Tech and encounter with Jerzy:
Witnessed by author.

EIGHTEEN:
The Rhizome

Virginia Tech Memorial Garden:
Visited by author with Norma and students.

Jerzy’s story:
Erika Hayasaki, contributed to by Richard Fausset, “A Deadly Hush in Room 211,”
Los Angeles Times,
April 25, 2007; Jerzy Nowak and Richard E. Veilleux, “Personal Reflections on the Virginia Tech Tragedy from a Victim’s Spouse with Commentary by a Close Colleague,”
Traumatology
14, no. 89 (March 2008): 89–99; also based on author interviews with him at Virginia Tech.

Road trip to Virginia Tech:
Witnessed by author.

Student presentation at Virginia Tech:
Witnessed by author.

Be the Change activities:
Some witnessed by author; others documented in photos, videos, and interviews with participants.

NINETEEN:
Life Cycles

Information in chapter based on author’s interview with Parneeta Lal.

TWENTY:
Birthday

Norma’s birthday trip:
Observed by author.

“Trust (the first of our ego values) is here defined as ‘the assured reliance on another’s integrity,’ the last of our values”:
Erikson, “Eight Stages of Man,” in
Childhood and Society,
269.

Albom, Mitch.
Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson.
New York: Broadway, 2002.

Ariès, Philippe.
The Hour of Our Death: The Classic History of Western Attitudes Toward Death over the Last One Thousand Years.
2nd ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1982.

———.
Western Attitudes Toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present.
The Johns Hopkins Symposia in Comparative History, The Johns Hopkins University Press, August 1, 1975.

Bakwin, Harry. “The Hospital Care of Infants and Children.”
The Journal of Pediatrics
39, no. 3 (September 1951): 383–390.

———. “Loneliness in Infants.”
American Journal of Diseases in Children
63, no. 1 (1942): 30–40.

Bauby, Jean-Dominique.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death.
New York: Vintage, June 23, 1998.

Becker, Ernest.
The Birth and Death of Meaning: A Perspective in Psychiatry and Anthropology.
New York: Free Press, 1962.

———.
The Denial of Death.
New York: Free Press, 1973.

Becker, Ernest, and Daniel Liechty, ed.
The Ernest Becker Reader.
Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005.

Blackmore, Susan.
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Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1993.

Bryant, Clifton D., ed.
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Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2003.

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———.
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———.
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———.
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———.
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———.
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———.
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———.
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———.
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———.
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———.
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———.
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