The Year of Magical Thinking

The Year of Magical Thinking Glossary

Dumbstruck

Astonished, stunned

Autopsy

Inspection of body after death

Organ Donation

Donating organs from a dead body for transplant

Paroxysm

A sudden burst of emotion

Obituary

A notice of a death in a newspaper

Contradiction

A direct opposition between two things

Bereavement

Grief for a lost person or thing

Sideswiping

Getting hit by something coming from the side

Sepsis

An invasion of the body by harmful bacteria and their toxins

Suttee

Indian funerary practice in which the widow throws herself onto the dead husband's pyre

Cremation

Burning of a dead body

Self-pity

Feeling bad for oneself and dwelling upon one's own woes

Chronology

A list of events in order of time

Mortality

Subject to death

Dillation

Expansion

Anticoagulant

Drug used to prevent the clotting of blood

Gilded

Decorated with gold

Inexorability

Inevitability, the necessity of something happening

Angiogram

Scan of the heart

Resurrection

Bringing or coming back to life

Convention

Gathering of a political party where candidates for elections are chosen

Widowmaker

Something that may kill someone

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