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Abstract

When asked by his mother what to do about her dying father, the author finds himself in an aporia. Utilizing a broad range of rhetorical and ethical touch-stones, the author uses autoethnography to explore the phenomenon of communication ethics as it occurs in everyday experience. The essay privileges lived experience as central to what it means to be human. The call of conscience, the life-giving gift of acknowledgment, human struggle, and the use of communication to navigate aporias are all explored. Though his grandfather dies, the author comes to realize that even in death his grandfather is acknowledged as a life and continues to give life. The narrative demonstrates autoethnography's usefulness in understanding phenomenological experiences and the veracity of communication ethics in lived experience.

Keywords

death aporia communication ethics conscience acknowledgment autoethnography

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Granpa's Call

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