My sister-in-law gave me a book titled My Sister's Keeper for Christmas. I picked it up today and just finished it. In the process of putting Logan in his crib I have confused my days and nights. No, I am not sleeping all day, I am just not sleeping at all!
This isn't a book review but I am going to talk about the book so if you haven't read it and wish to, don't read this post.
I have never been so affected by a book in my entire life. It was such a tough read that I had to walk away from it a couple of times and then come back. The ending left me crying off and on for about a hour. Eric, my gentle, sweet, husband says to me, It's fiction Jennifer, not even a true story, get over it. This is why women give birth to children and not men. I honestly do believe that while men are connected to their children in a way that women may not understand, the bond between woman and child is not stronger per se, but different?
The parents in the story have two children, one created to save the other who has cancer. The younger child decides she doesn't want to "save" her sister anymore. We find out later that the older sister doesn't want to be saved anymore and as usual, the youngest is fulfilling her role of being her sister's watchdog.
If I only had one child, I think I would have come away from this book angry at the younger child. I mean who wouldn't want to save their siblings life? How would I look at and care for the younger child if she didn't want to save her sibling who was the other half of my heart? Since I have two living breathing individual children whom I love so deeply for such different reasons (other than the fact that they are my children of course) I felt differently. I can only hope that I would never place that type of expectation of either of my children. More than that, I can only hope that we never have to even think about something like this.
I felt such sorrow for Anna, the youngest, who had such adult decisions placed upon her at such a young age. She never was an individual to me, only a body to be harvested for the older child's relief. I wonder if her mom truly looked at her that way or if she thought of her as being even more special, because she could do what the mother yearned to do....cure her child. I would imagine she thought of her as being more special but was so wrapped up in the illness of her eldest that she forgot to be a mother to all her children. When one of your babies are ill or upset, you just want to fix it. I think the guilt the mother carried had to be immense.
I told Eric that I think this book affected me so much because I was afraid that I would have reacted like the mother. We would be faced with a crisis, there would be an obvious answer, and I would just expect everyone to fall into place and do what I expected of them. I know Eric would be Brian, the father who would be able to step away from the emotional whirlwind and see the points of view of all of the children. It made me love Eric even more for being our moral compass but it made me so sad for the mother and the struggle she had for both of her children.
As a side note, the ending was so traumatic that I don't even know what to do with that. I mean really? You are going to kill Anna anyway? So much for happy endings. The interesting twist is that all the guilt that Anna carried was transferred to Kate. So really, in the end, no one really "won" I guess that was the point though.
Ok. I got that off my chest now I'm going to sleep.
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