The Randomness/Uncertainty of Life

The author associates the game of baseball, Lauren, and Jill’s father with the randomness/uncertainty of life through Jill’s narrative point of view. When the narrator first introduces Lauren, she is in a wheelchair. At this point readers do not know why. As Jill observes and talks to her, readers learn that Lauren is in a wheelchair because of a random event that changed her life completely. The narrator references this event as an accident. The word accident highlights that her current state is a random event, as is something that nobody planned. In addition, the narrator shows how this random event changed the trajectory of Lauren’s life as she “had been one of the best athletes [Jill] knew… And now, she spent most of her free time-taking pain medication and doing physical therapy” (18).

The narrator associates Jill’s...