My Sister's Keeper

by Jodi Picoult

There are lyrics from the song What Sarah Said by Death Cab for Cutie that say, "And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time."

Isn't it true? We plan on vacations months in advance we start buying for Christmas when we find the perfect gift a year early. We plan long lives with the people we love surrounding us. But we never know what is really going to happen. We don't know how unlimited or limited our time together really is. In your mind you aren't thinking, I hope you are around in three months so we can go on vacation. You just assume your people will be around. No questions asked.

"I wonder if all mothers feel like this the moment they realize their daughters are growing up--as if it is impossible to believe that the laundry I once folded for her was doll-sized; as if I can still see her dancing in lazy pirouettes along the lip of the sandbox. Wasn't it yesterday that her hand was only as big as the sand dollar she found on the beach? That same hand, the one that's holding a boy's; wasn't it just holding mine, tugging so that I might stop and see the spiderweb, the milkweed pod, any of a thousand moments she wanted me to freeze? Time is an optical illusion--never quite as solid or strong as we think it is. You would assume that, given everything, I saw this coming. But watching Kate watch this boy, I see I have a thousand things to learn."

I wonder when we learn how little control we actually have, and how lucky we are to share the special moments we do.

In this book, Kate the oldest daughter has some form of Leukemia. Her brother is not a perfect match for her and so her parents have another daughter, Anna, and genetically make sure she is a perfect match to be a donor for her. Anna was created and born to keep Kate alive. As soon as she was born they harvested her cord blood cells, which seems fairly mild. What else would you do with it? Throughout her life Anna keeps giving blood and bone marrow, trying to save her sister. But when Anna, as a teenager, is supposed to give her sister a kidney, she decides she does not want to give anymore of herself to keep her failing sister alive. She gets a lawyer and tells her parents she no longer wants to keep her sister living.

But she loves her sister and she wonders...

"If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one? Or are you always a sister, even when the other half of the equation is gone?"

Her father, studies stars. He later relates the following.

"There are stars in the night sky that look brighter than the others, and when you look at them through a telescope you realize you are looking at twins. The two stars rotate around each other, sometimes talking nearly a hundred years to do it. They created so much gravitational pull there's no room around for anything else. You might see a blue star, for example, and realize only later that it has a white dwarf as a companion-that first one shines so bright, but the time you notice the second one, it's really too late."

Isn't it rare and beautiful to find people in your life who want to share their lives with you.

"I wonder if Julia feels like it has been moments, not years, since we've been together. If sitting at this counter with me feels as effortless for her as it does for me. It's like picking up an unfamiliar piece of sheet music and starting to stumble through it. Only to realize it is a melody you'd once learned by heart, one you can play without even trying."

Isn't that what life is about? Finding your melody, the people who enter and leave, place their song along with yours, creating a beautiful masterpiece. It is your song, your life, and your love that create the beauty that surround you. If even just for a few moments, people can add to your life in the most beautiful ways.