Generally I like to take an interest in the things my children are interested in. I will often read the same books. We used to have a rule that you could not see a movie made from a book unless you read the book first.
I believe this started as a result from my then twelve year old boy wanting to see A Clockwork Orange. I got him the book.
Today I am reading a young adult book where, two pages in, I am quite sure one or both of the main characters is going to die. Another teen cancer book. I think I have read at least three teen cancer books.
When I was a teen, in my free time I read about money, drugs, fabulously shallow people and anything else I could get my hands on.
I hid the book Wifey by Judy Bloom in my camp trunk one summer, and late at night I read aloud to my bunkmates as quietly as I could and we giggled at all the sex scenes as we were equally appalled, swearing we would never ever do such things. Gross me out, gag me with a spoon!
Times have changed and I could probably put Wifey to shame, and now older teens and horny women are reading about S&M.
Not me. Here I sit reading the pathos of first love and death all mixed into one well-written and sad book.
While reading I came across an interesting word not often used in my daily lingo.
Hamartia. The fatal flaw. How I love the Greeks for coming up with such a wonderful word. Usually it is seen in literature. Let's face it, how do you work "hamartia" in with, "God damnit, I swear not doing your own laundry is your hamartia!"
No, I think the Greeks had a deeper meaning for it.
I adore the idea that one person can be chock full of hamartias, that one man's hamartia is another man's saving grace.
This book also had a line I relate too, and kudos to the author for putting it in the mind of a teenager.
"The world contains a lot of dead people".
YES! I feel that all the time, every day, I am always saying I am keeper of the dead. I see dead people. The whole thing.
A few weeks ago I had a slight cancer scare. I had a biopsy on a Friday and on Monday morning I recieved a call saying I needed to go see the oncologist that afternoon. Oh, but not any oncologist, the same one my cancer-dead husband saw for five years. We lovingly called him Dr. Death.
I know how cancer works and the faster they want you in their office, the worse it is.
Here is the irony; I was half hoping I had it. I have been in such a pit of depression that the idea of cancer was a good thing. My husband had always called it a gift. I wanted that gift. I wanted to fight for life, rather than just let it be. I needed to see the reasons to live.
When I was declared cancer-free and just filled with some scar tissue, I was a bit let down. Back to my shell of depression I go. Back to the other kinds of doctors who shovel out pills that may or may not make me feel any better.
Is my hamartia that I am alwasy fixated on death? The feeling that I need to keep the dead alive in some way? For my children? For myself?
If that is the case then is writing my saving grace?
Could my hamartia also be my saving grace? The end result in wanting to live and daily looking for the reasons and positives, yet sometimes failing to see it all?
I will finish reading this young adult book and see who dies, who lives, and what the author makes of death and life.
And if nothing else I learned a killer word (no pun intended.)
