Subject: RE: my person experience of a passage from the death of ivan illych
From: "Naomi Biden" <[email-masked]>
To: "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2011 20:24:12 -0400

in case attachment didn't work

        Ill Thoughts 
Naomi Biden
September 18, 2011
“A chill came over him, his breathing ceased, and he felt only the throbbing of his heart” 
At this moment Ivan is completely and utterly terrified.  Fear of death and when it will over come him has entirely infected his mind. He has come to the realization, at least momentarily, that he has no power over his own death. It will seize him whenever and however it pleases.  To some extent everyone experiences this moment in they’re lifetime.  Some people more then others, for Ivan, not until now. Ivan has come to the realization that he is totally vulnerable. Sickness is so horrible in part because we only have so much control over getting healthy. Even if we take all the right medicine it is up to our bodies and circumstance as to whether we recover or die. Ivan has lived his entire life making conscious decisions for himself and for the first time he has no say in his future. This feeling is truly a debilitating one for him. 
	As I read this passage I immediately got the chills. When I was younger I would lay in bed and whenever my mind wasn’t occupied with something else it would drift to the millions of diseases I’d heard of that I could have. I imagined symptoms and could think of nothing else but them. I was so frightened of what I didn’t know and what I had no control over.  Although I seemed to have pushed my fear of illness and of my hypocondria as an illness in it of itself to the back of my head, Ivan’s feelings immediately reminded me of that feeling in the pit of my stomach and the throbbing noise of my heart I used to lay awake listening too. It’s not a feeling that I will ever forget no matter how little I think of it. Ivan has obviously given little thought to death up until he get’s sick and perhaps that is why I felt this moment to be such a powerful one. He has finally felt and grasped the fear that accompanies disease and dying and ultimately powerlessness. 
	To feel total terror, to experience fear on every level, in every part of your body, is an indescribable feeling. Nevertheless it can be explained enough so that a reader or listener can understand and identify that the feeling is fear. When Ivan’s breathing stops, I imagine time freezes, his heart throbs and it’s all that he can hear or feel, he’s terrified because it’s dark, and he feels powerless. Although fear can find anybody at anytime of day, it lives and feeds of off darkness and nighttime. I believe this is because nighttime is a solitary time, a reflective time, a time when you are left alone with your thoughts. Ivan has never been a fearful or reflective man and in a sense he has never truly experienced the dark until this chapter of his life. 
Furthermore this moment contrasts with the moment immediately before it in that just before he comes to the realization that he is dying and there is nothing he can do about it he attempts to convince himself that he has complete control over the situation. He tells himself the medicine is curing him and even visualizes improvement in the vermiform appendix. Just as he is starting to really believe he has taken hold of the situation the pain starts and he is once again powerless, confused, and scared.  Whenever I was scared, whether it be that I would forget to breath as soon as I fell asleep or that I was dying of some symptomless disease, I would always try and rationalize my fears and convince myself that I wasn’t legitimately scared. That period of convincing myself my fears were all in my head was always followed by my most panicked moments of all.  The quote I chose represents a feeling of fear and powerlessness that precedes death and accompanies illness. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Hunter Biden [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Sun 9/18/2011 8:19 PM
To: Naomi Biden
Subject: Re: my person experience of a passage from the death of ivan illych
 
There is nothing attached.

RHB
202.333.1880

On Sep 18, 2011, at 7:01 PM, "Naomi Biden" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> plz help 
> due tomorrow before noon 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> LOVE YOU.............................................................
> 
> call me from kenya
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hunter Biden [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Thu 8/4/2011 1:32 PM
> To: Naomi Biden; Kathleen Biden
> Subject: Fwd: Prepare for your upcoming United flight on Thu, Aug 11
> 
> 
> 
> R. Hunter Biden
> Rosemont Seneca Partners
> 202-333-1880
> 
> Begin forwarded message:
> 
>> From: "United PreFlight Notification" <[email-masked]>
>> Date: August 4, 2011 11:39:41 AM CDT
>> To: "Asha K Grant" <[email-masked]>
>> Subject: Prepare for your upcoming United flight on Thu, Aug 11
>> Reply-To: [email-masked]
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> 
>> 
>> 
>>                        
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