Becky’s Online Reading Group

Life As We Knew It
Day 6
Chapters 15-17

Chapter 15
Mom’s down again. Another ankle accident.
Increasing responsibility. Wood stove. Tending the fire.

Mrs. Nesbitt
What a hard (but necessary) conversation to have.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but there comes a time and point for every family to have this conversation. To know what your loved ones want.

And the fear of finding someone dead. Very real. I remember my mom was always terrified of finding my grandfather dead. He had cancer. And it was terminal. We all knew it was terminal.  And Mom would walk to check up on him every day and spend a few hours with him. But her big concern would be that she would be the one to find him. Of course, there came a point when she had to stay with him almost always full-time. She would spend a good portion of the day, and all night. She would only come back home to shower and to do laundry. She needed a bit of time to regroup. Around about this time, we got him to agree to hospice care. This was very very very very helpful. We really couldn’t have done this alone.

Other thoughts. Mrs. Nesbitt seems resigned to dying, resigned to her fate. She’s facing it bravely. She’s made up her mind. And this is just so authentic. My great-grandmother and my grandfather (within months of each other–July and October) both went through the same thing essentially. They’d decided they’d had enough. They’d decided they wanted to die. Wanted to go. Were tired of living. Both decided to stop eating. Both made their wishes very known.

“But I hope when I get closer to death, however old I might be, that I can face it with courage and good sense the way Mrs. Nesbitt does.” (234)

Boarding up of the windows. Discovering the well has gone dry.

Chapter 16

“Mrs. Nesbitt died.” (240)

We knew it was coming. But still. Finding joy in the small things. The discovery of food. Of water. Of baseball cards. Of taking solace in a good friendship.

November 25. After Thanksgiving dinner celebration. A feast of “one leg and two bites of thigh” off of a cornish hen.

November 26. New motivation to do schoolwork. To begin to do schoolwork.

“We tried to look shamefaced. Bad us for not doing algebra when the world is coming to an end.” (252)

Miranda picks history. Mom picks French. Jonny picks Algebra. Matt picks philosophy.

The chapter ends with a reminder that “Matt, Mom, and I [Miranda] are down to one meal a day, but at least we’re eating 7 days a week.” (255)

Chapter 17

Blizzard. Matt returns safe but there was a doubt there for a few pages. Realization that they’re all alone. That the blizzard (and any future snow) will keep them homebound for the duration.

Clearing the roof of snow. Doing yardwork–shoveling paths. Opening the garage. Getting out the cross-country skis.

Jonny realizes that he’s the only one eating much food. The rest eat once a day and not very much at that. He’s eating more often and more of it when he does eat. The family expects to die, and expects him to survive.

Reshuffling of eating schedule.

“It’s funny how sorry I feel for Jon these days. I’m 2 1/2 years older than him and I feel like got those 2 1/2 years to go to school and swim and have friends and he got cheated out of them. And maybe he’ll live 2 1/2 years longer than me, or 20 years or 50, but he’ll still never have those 2 1/2 years of normal life.

Every day when I go to sleep I think what a jerk I was to have felt sorry for myself the day before. My Wednesdays are worse than my Tuesdays, my Tuesdays way worse than my Tuesday of a week before. Which means every tomorrow is going to be worse than every today. Why feel sorry for myself today when tomorrow’s bound to be worse?

It’s a hell of a philosophy, but it’s all I’ve got.” (275)