"The whole thing has warped me, I think. I'm a board left out in the rain, and it's impossible to go back to being straight and undamaged ever again. This is who I am now.
The girl whose brother died."
Many years ago my cousin, Ken, my Uncle Ken's only son, committed suicide in what we tend to think of as the prime of life. He left behind his parents, his three sisters, three very young children, and unanswerable questions. Of all the ways people can die it's one with quite unique challenges for those left behind. The knowing that he/she/they chose and actively carried out a plan to cease living can cause guilt layered over the pain of loss for survivors, especially family members and close friends who feel they should have seen/done something before it was too late.
If the deceased is a teen chances are good that the bereaved will include siblings who are already faced with the myriad challenges of the transition between child and adulthood and immersed in an environment where peers and teachers usually deal quite awkwardly with the situation. That's the plight of Lexi, narrator of Cynthia Hand's The Last Time We Say Goodbye.
Lexi is a dedicated and really smart student in her senior year of high school. Her favorite subject is math. She loves and relies on its predictability, certainty, and proofs. She's shooting for MIT's highly competitive math program.
"I was born with numbers on the brain. What I would do, if I could really put this pen to paper and produce something useful, is take my memories, these fleeting, painful moments of my life, and find some way to add and subtract and divide them, insert variables and move them, try to isolate them, to discover their elusive meanings, to translate them from possibilities to certainties."
Lexi has painful moments that have collectively shattered her world. A few years ago her father broke up her family by divorcing her mother and moving in with the cliche younger woman. She's not sure how to deal with him at very awkward mandatory weekly dinners.
Then last year right before Christmas her brother, Tyler walked into the garage and shot himself.
Lexi misses her only sibling. Her mother is constantly crying and self medicating with alcohol. In fact she's not sure she can leave her mom, even to go to her dream school. Her classmates see her as the sister of the boy who killed him, either smothering her with unwanted sympathy or ignoring her as if suicide was contagious.
And Lexi has a secret. Only she knows that the night Tyler died she blew a chance to save his life.
Although the narrative is purely fictional Hand lost her younger brother to suicide when she was 20 and he was only 17. That's why it has such a poignant ring of authenticity.
A lot of adults don't want to talk to teenagers about suicide. They think it's too morbid for younger people. Some even think they'll put the idea into their head. So a book that addresses the topic openly and candidly is a much needed breath of fresh air.
On a purrrsonal note, well today was great. I found more books at Orono Public Library. I got my third tattoo. It is totally gorgeous. Everyone who's seen it totally agrees. I got more people engaged in Operation Valentines. It probably will be a great success. And I have leftovers 😋 🤪 🙂 ☺️ to heat up for supper. Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be gross--lots of that yucky white stuff. If my Black Bear Mutual Aid Fund meeting is on I have to bus commute in that mess. So I'm hoping for a snow ❄️ day.
A great big shout out goes out to Rob Lucchesi of Black Cats Tattoo in Orono. He's a body artist extraordinaire (as you'll see in tomorrow's picture) and a really kind person.
Jules Hathaway
Sent from my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone
