A Separate Peace by John Knowles!!!!

Friday, October 29, 2010

Life's that way by Jim Beaver pages 185-254

Summary-
              On May 3, 2004 its been two months since  Cec died. Beaver is still trying to get used to the fact that his wife is gone , and can no longer exists. He writes about her in every journal entry saying how he wishes that she were here to see her progress. Maddie has autism so she has to go to therapy every week to check on her progress. As the Doctors concuded she is getting better and better at her speech although she is having trouble seeing eye to eye. Maddie may be having trouble with autism, but the doctors predic that sooner or later she will out grow it, due to her tremendously good progress. After a tremendous out fall with his wife, he recently finds out his father died, two months after Cec died, then his Grandmother died later on in the week. This was very sad as he lost not only one person that he loved but two other people that were a part of his life since he was an infant. Other then that there is nothig much to right since all that he rights is baout he is struggling with his fight as a single father. He still talks to Cec in public outloud having effective conversations, about Maddie's progress in speech and her actions. She gets cutier and cutier every night, saying things like "Daddy sad, i make boobo go away." theswe things just make his day. But nothing really happened this section of the book.

Quote-
         "Hold tight to those you love.Hold tight." ( Beaver 202).

Reaction-
            This quote really makes the reader feel pity for the narrator. It actually makes us the readers feel guilty that we may have not exactly spent quality time with the people we love.It makes us feel like we haven't done anything to close the gaps in out hearts. Beaver gives alot of advise, saying that we should keep close to the people that we love and it at least made me wonder what I should do to fufil his advise.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Life's that way by Jim Beaver page 135-184

Summary-
              As Cecily gets worse over the days, she is no longer able to breath without a ventalizor, which helps her breath oxygen equally. During those days they took an x-ray of her lungs, finding out that the cancer has not only spread through the lungs but then the cancer cells also got into her blood stream which will take over her whole body. The doctors estimated that she wouldnt live longer than two weeks, maybe even a couple of days. It all depended on how fast the cells grow. Mark couldn believe this, he wanted to so badly save her life that he ilegally made some tea that would help boost her immune system into her tube. But that didn't help, as the most tragic thing happened all through Jim Beaver's life. Cecily died on March 3 at 8:o5 a.m. Her husband was right there by her side seeing her died was the worse thing that every happened, saying that she peacefully died. A month goes on and Jim is still mourning over his wife, but begins to get rid of her things one thing at a time. After all that was done he wants to get a permit to throw Cecily's ashes in The "Red wood national forest".

Quote-
         "It was only with the darkening that I could see how much light had once been there." (Beaver 148)

Reaction-
               I think this quote is trying to tell us the readers, that when there is something that is bad happening to one of us or our family memebers, we don't see the light in anything but we see only the bad. The same with Beaver, and his wife. During the time he actually saw her die she looked like there was no light in her eyes, but when he reflected on it during the day , he actually realized that her eyes actually had light to them till they died. Also during her days of dieing he still described cancer as an elephant.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Life's that Way pg 47-133

Summary-
               As the days go by and Cecliy is in the hospital, Maddie begins to have tantrums. She would jump up and down, for hours crying until she got her way. As Maddie gets worse, Beaver wants to take her to the hopital. A couple days later she was diagnosed with autism. As a result Maddie has to go to a therapist, every week. Trying to juggle both his wife and his daughter was begging to be very hard. So he began to take all the offers he gets from all his friends and family. So many people have offered to help that Beaver has a whole list of when one person will babysitt and when one will go to the hospital to see Cecily. News on Cecily has really been shocking in these past chapters. She has gone through a couple chemo therapy and some radiations. She was begging to get really tired sleeping most of the day, and she stopped radiation and chemo for a while, but the doctor gave her morphine which helped reduce the pain, it was said that it would also kill the cancer cells. So as a result of the morphine, Cecily begins to loose her memory.So after a couple of days with morphine they go back to her regular chemo and radiation. But after a couple weeks back on her chemo, they tested to see if  the cancer cells have somewhat declined, but they Doctor reports that they were slightely up but not too much so he was actually encouraged that they were not drastically changing in a bad way. But soon after the examination Cecily begins to have severe stomach and back pain.  So Beaver took her to the hospital and soon after they find out that she has severe gastric. Which is totally worse then what was expected. So then a day later they also found out that she had pnemonia. Still in pain Cecily is still hospitilized.

Quote-
         "They day after, we fight. And if this disease plans on whipping us, it better bring a launch,'cause it's going to have a long day doing it." ( Beaver 55).

Reaction-
              This quote, tremendously shows how strong that this family will be. It shows that they are willing to fight and do whatever it takes to oversome this disease. It also shows how supportive Beaver is and how he wants his wife to really heal soon. In the novel it also describes cancer as being several types of animals like an animal, For example one that I found was interesting would be when they describes cancer as an elephant. I think it is really ironic because an elephant is known as an animal that would disrupt anything in its way, and that is exaclty what the cancer cells are doing to Cecily's body, distrupting everything in its way.