The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Essay

Words: 1012
Pages: 5

Bilal Nasir Khan once said, "The most painful goodbyes are the ones that are never said and never explained." This means that when someone dies, the goodbyes said are very painful to endure, but if a loved one never gets to say goodbye, it hurts even worse. In the bookThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot, Henrietta Lacks is a regular person who happened to get diagnosed with cervical cancer. She ended up dying from the disease, but her cells were kept and lived and kept multiplying. Henrietta had many children, a husband, and many great friends. One of her children, Deborah Lacks, who was the youngest, became very interested in her mother and her older sister. Her older sister was Henrietta's oldest who died of a diagnosis of idiocy. Deborah grew up without a mother figure and she never got to say goodbye to her …show more content…
She used the definition of "the act or fact of being killed." This definition describes how her death affected everyone close to her and how her death affected and altered her loved one's lives. The second definition she used was "the state of being dead." This version of death describes what she missed and what she could have or would have prevented in her state of being dead. The third definition of death used in the second part of the book was "the permanent ending of cells and tissues." In Henrietta's case this definition did not apply. Her tissues and body did not function and she did die but her cells went on to live. They multiplied rabidly and never died. In conclusion,The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks talked about three parts of Henrietta's life: Life, Death, and Immortality. Death was a bulk of Henrietta's life and a lot happened during her death. Her cells might never have left and are still alive, but neither has she. She is with Deborah, her family, and her friends