Melanie Smith, whom was seventeen, was an ordinary girl like no other. She went to school, had a sweet sixteen, had friends, had a puppy, even had good grades, but there was a catch. She ended up coming home from school one day, with her mom and her older sister standing in the living room looking upset. “Your grandmother,” her mother, Maria starts. “Is at the hospital.” “Why?” Melanie asks. “She has,” her mother begins, not wanting to finish what she was about to say. “She has cancer,” her sister, Mandie replies. “She does?” Melanie asks, her eyes starting to water. They nod. She swarms them both in to a hug. “I’m sorry, mom,” Melanie says, letting go of them both slowly walking up the stairs to her bedroom. Melanie’s bedroom was bright.
It consist of pink, yellow and white. The sun was shining threw her open blinds and pink curtains. Why does this happen to me?, she thought. Her father had died in the war when she was only four. It didn’t affect her as much as it did her older sister. She was a daddy’s girl. Whereas Melanie was a mommy’s girl. Her sister used to always be happy, now, she usually hides in her room. When Melanie would knock she would either say, “I’m studying,” or say nothing at all. She went over to the pink cage of her golden retriever, and let Lucy out. Melanie picked up Lucy and sat down on her bed, while petting the cute puppy. “I love you, Lucy.” She says, as she gets up and walks down the stairs to get her homework. As she walks up stairs, she gets a text from her friend, Emma Riley. The text said, ‘Hey, who is your partner for the Algebra project?’ She replies with, ‘This guy named.. Michael Jacks, I think.’ Emma then says, ‘cool, I have Helena Wester.’ Helena Wester is another friend of Melanie. The next day, Melanie got up and did all the necessary things of a teen. She walks down stairs and grabs a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and gets milk.
The main character in this story is a Jewish girl named Alicia. When the book
While reading “The Ordinary Life” by Barbara Crooker, one is able to understand the dramatic irony of the poem and the irony of her ordinary day being rather interesting. In the first line, Crooker states that nothing happened that day, however she later goes on to contradict herself. When reading the poem, one can see her describe a day full of activities, such as: cleaning the cupboards, taking care of her baby, making dinner for her family, and a few other pastimes. Additionally, Crooker uses strong descriptive language to illustrate what the mother sees as an unremarkable day. For instance, “[...] sat in a circle of sunlight,” (line 9) and “[...] a long slow kiss, tasting of coffee and cream,” (lines 26-27) show the depth of her awareness
Her struggles are of a flower trying to blossom in a pile of garbage. Growing up in the poor side of the southside of Chicago, Mexican music blasting early in the morning or ducking from the bullets flying in a drive-by shooting. Julia solace is found in her writing, and in her high school English class. Mr. Ingram her English teacher asks her what she wants out of life she cries “I want to go to school. I want to see the word” and “I want so many things sometimes I can’t even stand it. I feel like I’m going to explode.” But Ama doesn’t see it that way, she just tells, Julia, she is a bad daughter because she wants to leave her family. The world is not what it seems. It is filled with evil and bad people that just want to her hurt and take advantage of
Although illness narratives are not novel or new, their prevalence in modern popular literature could be attributed to how these stories can be relatable, empowering, and thought-provoking. Susan Grubar is the writer for the blog “Living with Cancer”, in The New York Times, that communicates her experience with ovarian cancer (2012). In our LIBS 7001 class, Shirley Chuck, Navdeep Dha, Brynn Tomie, and I (2016) discussed various narrative elements of her more recent blog post, “Living with Cancer: A Farewell to Legs” (2016). Although the elements of narration and description (Gracias, 2016) were easily identified by all group members, the most interesting topics revolved around symbolism as well as the overall impression or mood of the post.
Susie’s mother opened the door to let Molly, Susie’s babysitter, inside. Ten-month old Susie seemed happy to see Molly. Susie then observed her mother put her jacket on and Susie’s face turned from smiling to sad as she realized that her mother was going out. Molly had sat for Susie many times in the past month, and Susie had never reacted like this before. When Susie’s mother returned home, the sitter told her that Susie had cried until she knew that her mother had left and then they had a nice time playing with toys until she heard her mother’s key in the door. Then Susie began crying once again.
For the readers out there who haven’t had the privilege of reading this book, let’s take a moment to recap and spill the beans on this unbelievably amazing piece of literature. It all starts out with the reader knowing the main character, Hazel Grace Lancaster. Hazel has had cancer since she was a little girl, the big part of this information is that Hazel’s cancer is terminal. She has a type of cancer that makes it almost impossible for her to breath on her own, this is known as stage 4 thyroid cancer. Sometime during Hazel’s life, her parents decided that she was depressed, so they've sent her to a support group. Hazel drags on and on about how horribly boring it is, but soon her perspective changes when Isaac, a friend from group brings ...
Her eyes were heavy, her body weak. As she crawled into the bathroom two feet away, Abby felt her body slowly succumbing to the numbness. All of her pain would be gone in less than 10 minutes, so why would she want to turn back? What about the senior trip Abby had planned with her best friend? What about the chair at the dinner table that would now be vacant? A couple of hours later Abby’s family came home from her little sister’s soccer game. Little did they know what they would find as they approached the top of the stairs. Her little sister, Ali, stood still as she looked down at her feet. There on the cold floor lay her big sister, her role model, and her super hero. Ali was crushed when she saw the pill bottle in her hand and the pale color of her skin. Her mom fell to her knees screaming and crying, wondering where she
I looked around at everyone in the room and saw the sorrow in their eyes. My eyes first fell on my grandmother, usually the beacon of strength in our family. My grandmother looked as if she had been crying for a very long period of time. Her face looked more wrinkled than before underneath the wild, white hair atop her head. The face of this once youthful person now looked like a grape that had been dried in the sun to become a raisin. Her hair looked like it had not been brushed since the previous day as if created from high wispy clouds on a bright sunny day.
She’s been struggling everyday of her life for the past 10 years; battling and fighting this horrible disease has made it hard on her and her family. The cancer has now metastasized, making it difficult for her to take care of everyday responsibilities and participate in daily activities. Her 13-year-old daughter is watching as her mother suffers and becomes brittle and weak.
It had been a cold, snowy day, just a few days after Thanksgiving. My grandmother became immensely ill and unable to care for herself. We knew she had health problems but her sudden turn for the worst was so unexpected and therefore we weren’t prepared for the decisions that had to be made and the guilt we would feel. Where would grandma live? Would she be taken care of? So many concerns floated around. A solution was finally found and one that was believed to be the best or so we thought.
The joys of having a loving, caring, and sweet grandmother, all stolen from me by cancer. The day of her diagnosis and the doctors giving her a time expectancy. Sitting in the room, Dr. Vargas mumbled, “Lucila Toro, I’m sorry to inform you have stage two pancreatic cancer.” As a child, I was trying to grasp this information of how all my beliefs in God could fail me, death I had hoped my
There are many themes that occur and can be interpreted differently throughout the novel. The three main themes that stand out most are healing, communication, and relationships.
She knows that when someone has cancer, people look at them like they are a foreign being. She does not want to be seen like that. She wants to be seen as a normal teenage girl. She has a friend from highschool that she sees once in a blue moon but feels the tension every time they get together. She knows that things will never feel the same with her. When Hazel meets Augustus, a boy she met at a Cancer support group, she feels like a normal teenager. They both have cancer but act very nonchalant about it. They both live their everyday lives like it is a normal day. Hazel has a very realistic attitude. She doesn’t like when people tiptoe around the fact she has cancer but also doesn’t like it to be the topic of conversation. This helps her cope a lot. Her dry sense of humor is a huge part of her coping. That is why Augustus is such a great fit in Hazel’s life. They are both very similar in that way. Augustus once said “I love it when you talk medical to me.” (TFIOS pp. 34). To the both of them, cancer has become a normality in their lives. A great part to the way Hazel copes is that she does not care what anyone says or thinks. She does what she likes/wants. She does not care what everyone else is doing. If she did, that would just be an added, unneeded stressor in her life. Hazel also loves to read, and she uses reading as a way of coping. She constantly rereads the book “An Imperial Affliction”. Hazel says it was the closest thing she had to a bible (TFIOS pp.13). Hazel relates this book to her own life. In a way it makes her feel as if she is not alone. She mentions that the author of that book, Peter Van Houten, was the only person she had ever come across who seemed to understand what is was like to be dying but to not have died (TFIOS pp. 13). This is what she uses as a distraction. Reading kind of takes her away from the life she is living and puts her in another role. Hazel also sees cancer
“a mindless town is a smooth flowing town but not a good town. “A wrinkle in time”. i'm like IT, calvin, and charles wallace. (i'm like IT because I hate everyone. i'm like calvin because i'm tall. and i'm like charles because i'm smart, and cute.) But the main characters are mr. murry ,meg ,calvin, and charles. (mr. murry comes in later AKA in ch 6 or 7.) And a group of ex stares are named mrs. whatsit , mrs who , and mrs which come with them.
The ringing became louder and louder until she grabbed the phone and answered! It was Christmas eve and a young girl named Connie and her whole family and extended family were having a Christmas party and Connie was hanging out with her cousin Erica. Something felt a little odd that night like something was watching them. Connie and her cousin Erica were hanging out in the family room and suddenly Erica’s phone started ringing and it was an unknown number so she ignored it. The phone started to ring again and she ignored it again.