After Ever After Themes

After Ever After Themes

The Reality of Mortality

In the chapter titled, "The End of Thanksgiving," Jeffery talks about the lessons children with cancer learn much earlier than most healthy kids. He says there was a girl who'd also had cancer who died and Steven had completely lost control of his emotions over the girl's death. When Jeffery didn't, Steven asked why Jeffery wasn't sad. Jeffery says that he was sad about the girl's death, but that he wasn't surprised. He says healthy children don't think about the bad things that can happen in their everyday lives. Cancer patients, faced with the constant reality of their own mortality and the mortality of other children with cancer, are also apt to realize other aspects of their lives aren't as secure and ordered as they had wish. The two examples are that parents might lose their jobs or the stock market might crash. The point is that nothing is guaranteed...
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