Q3 Outside Reading Week 7 Post B

Although I have officially finished My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult, I wanted to post one last thought on my blog about an absolutely amazing book.

**WARNING: This next section may contain spoilers. There are no guarantees. Don't say I didn't warn you!!**

Throughout the story I had always thought Anna was fighting for her freedom, her life, her right to choose, and I was right. It was never about the kidney. It was never about attention. It was about a choice and the freedom to have that choice. The funniest thing about it all was how it came to an end. She may have won the right to medical emancipation, the right to choose her own medical course, but she never truly got the right to choose her own course in life. For the thirteen years that she did live, it was all up to her parents. And when she got the right to choose, she didn't know yet what to choose. But all that was taken away from her because no matter how many judges, lawyers, or officials say you have the right, no one can choose their fate. From there, a serious of extremely complicated thoughts pour out of my very own brain. What is fate? Is there even such a thing? Do you believe in it? Do I believe in it? Truthfully, I can't say. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. But something that Kate said at the very end of the book has struck me, has stuck with me. She said that after the kidney transplant, she's gone 8 years without a relapse. No one knows why but she thinks it's because someone had to go. And because Anna went for her, Kate got the chance to live.

In the beginning of the book there is a prologue without a title, without a character directed to it. I always thought it was Anna speaking because it sounded like her. She described how she'd wanted to kill her sister, how she was always known in relation to her, and how in the end, she never killed her sister, her sister did it all on her own. But what turns out to be a first impression is unbelievably inaccurate. The font with which it is typed is the same as Kate's at the end. And because it was clearly not Kate who died, but Anna, the only logical explanation was that it was Kate all along. Anna had never tried to kill Kate. It had been the other way around. After realizing this, I wondered why. After some pondering I knew why. Kate didn't want to go on living life like this. Just as Anna was confined with being defined in relation to Kate, Kate was confined in being defined in relation to Anna. And if Anna died, if she was no longer there, Kate wouldn't have to go through what she was going through. No more transplants, no more operations, no more hospital. Sure she would die, but at this point, it seemed that Kate would rather die than live through this one more day. And now she blames herself for causing Anna's death. If it hadn't been Kate who told Anna about her wish, she never would've filed the lawsuit, and none of it would've happened in the first place. It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't supposed to be Anna. It was all wrong.

Yet this entire train of thought loops back again to what I talked about in the first paragraph: fate. Life works in weird ways. It honors you with something, and then takes another thing away. It fills your days with happiness, but the same amount of days are full of grief and sorrow as well. Anna won her lawsuit, but she lost her life. The Fitzgerald's lost Anna, but they got to keep Kate. Maybe there was a reason for all of this. Maybe this was how it was supposed to be. It's not fair. Nothing ever is. Life works in weird ways. You never know when it's going to hand you the gift of life, just to take it away from someone you love. And there's nothing you can do about it, but live your life the way that person would've wanted you to.