When Is Daddy Coming Home? I Hope Soon.

The average person doesn’t have the ability to choose between their two parents. It just can’t be done. Even at a time in our teenage lives where it’s easy for us to scream, “I hate you dad!” Which is why I think that Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a perfect book for us to read at this time. Although very mature and intense, there were many moments where I thought about my relationship with my parents, and God forbid what would happen if one of them were gone. My past blog on this book was a disaster because there were so many ideas to juggle and I didn’t know which one to focus on. I began to narrow down all the ideas until I got to the one that I thought was most devastating. Oskar and his mother.

All alone: Both of them without their other half. Of everyone in the world, I like to think that Oskar and his mother miss Thomas the most. Killed in The World Trade Center in 9/11, nobody was prepared for anything. I thought a lot about poor Oskar, a child, who doesn’t have his daddy anymore. How hard it must be for him to do all the things only him and his father used to do alone. And how much more upsetting it was when he would do those things with his mother.

This is where I started to ask myself, is it possible to choose between a parent? It killed me to even have to think about something like that. My mom walking out the door to go to work and not coming home? It’s unreal. Death is unreal, especially death of a person that you love more than anyone else in the world.

I thought a lot about, and still do think about how not only Oskar was at a loss. And what it means that he is the person that supposedly missed his father the most. As the book is narrated by Oskar, you feel his pain. You live in the grief and the confusion that he is going through. Although I don’t prefer to hear how much pain my Oskar is feeling, it’s easy to because it’s his words that I’m reading. I wondered if there were any other characters that felt as much pain. Soon after I remembered Oskar’s grandma, his father’s mom, I thought to myself, “Of course. How could I not think of her?”

I recently was talking with my dad about grandparents, and how people say that the happiest moment in a person’s life is when they hold their grandchild. I thought about Oskar’s grandma and how unfair it must be for her to see her son’s creation, and know that her son isn’t there. My dad said that the reason that is the best moment in a person’s life is because it’s the moment that they see that they brought two lives into the world. When a person says, “This is my grandchild.” They are also saying, “Look! I brought one life into the world, and he brought another! I am responsible for two human beings.” Can you imagine the confusion Oskar’s grandmother must be feeling: Not only is her son gone, her baby, but her baby’s baby is left all alone.

Then I thought about Oskar’s mother.

Her true love. Her family. It’s all gone. But sometimes, I became frustrated with her because she kept all her feelings inside.

I wouldn’t want to cry in front of my child, but I feel that something Oskar needs most right now is to know that he’s not alone. To know that it’s not weird to have the feelings he has.

It’s not normal and it’s not fair that you will have to lose a parent at such a young age. But guess what- It happens. And the thing that I would need most in that time in my life would be reassurance that I’m not alone and that my feelings aren’t unusual. I would need someone who could sit with me and share with me all the things that they are feeling. Someone who could tell me that they are thinking the same things, I’m not alone. That other person needs to be the other parent. I expected so much from Oskar’s mom and I never got anything.

Sometimes, I would close the book and imagine the perfect scene: Where his mother and him would just cry together. They needed each other. They really, really did. Of their family of three they were the only ones left. And they needed to use that feeling of emptiness and bring them together.

That’ when I wondered why they weren’t bonding an extreme amount. Maybe I was being unfair to assume that something like death could be used to someone’s advantage. But I didn’t mean it like that at all.

Really, I didn’t.

What I meant by wondering about that was my way of asking myself, what would happen if the situation was reversed? How would things turn out if Oskar’s mom died instead of his father? Before Thomas dies you see him and Oskar together, you see how close they were. Jonathan Safran Foer doesn’t really describe any activity with his mother, all you can see is how much Thomas loved his son and how much Oskar loved his dad.

It kills me to say this, Oskar and his dad were perfect. Which is why it was so devastating to see him go and have Oskar, young and unsure not know what to do. And then it was just his mother who always seemed to be with her new friend and letting Oskar do... Whatever.

I want to know so badly how Oskar and his mother were before Thomas’ death. Something so powerful as death can change a person, many people. I wonder if Oskar and his mother were perfect too, and the fact that they lost the only other person that they loved more than anything else in the world is gone ruined everything.

We don’t know what Oskar’s mom is doing in her room. We don’t know if she’s crying or just carrying on. I can understand if she doesn’t want to be upset in front of her baby, but at some moments I think that Oskar needed to see that his mother was just as hurt as he was.

As his mother gets closer with a man who also lost his family they are with eachother more. And as any sensible child would think, Oskar thought that he was his father’s replacement.

Not okay.

I was so excited to hear that his mom had found an adult that she could relate to. SO happy. But it killed when Oskar saw them together, and his mother looked happy. I knew that her way of grieving had to be done in front of another adult because her son was still... her son. And a child. And not only did she not want to upset him with her tears, but I think she didn’t want to overwhelm him with the big ideas of death and grief.

Little did she know that Oskar is brilliant and his emotions are far beyond his maturity level.

If his mother were able to see that, maybe things would be different.

But I’m not saying in any way that it’s his mother’s fault that they aren’t close. It’s the situation’s fault. It’s not fair. It’s just not. It’s all about the plane and how it crashed and how Oskar’s daddy died. That’s whose fault it is.

But because both Oskar and his mother were so caught off guard none of them knew how to handle everything. And soon, he just snapped and that’s how Oskar said what he said.

¾ into the book Oskar tells his mom that he wishes she was the one who died so that it was still his father who was alive.

That’s when I cried. I cried because that’s the worst thing anyone can say to anyone. And second of all, that’s when I found my answer.

I was so overwhelmed at that moment. I love Oskar. And to tell you the truth I was angry with his mother. But at that moment I just wanted to jump inside the pages and give his mom a hug. I realized that she didn’t know what she was doing. And while maybe it was intentional that Jonathan Safran Foer showed Oskar and his father together before he died to make you think that he was a better parent, I don’t know if he would he would be any better at what his mother was trying to do.

To anyone who will ever come across this small piece of writing: It is NOT possible to choose between a parent. I promise, and I’ve never been more about something in my entire life, that Oskar would have said the same thing to his father if he were the one living.

It’s a fact, that once you know you can’t have something you want it.

Oskar may have hated his mother at that moment. But. if she were gone than he would want her the most. He would hate his father for being there like he wanted. It’s not fair and it’s not okay to be as young as dear Oskar and have to live with one of two parents. I can’t sit here and watch Oskar have to choose.

And the pain is, he doesn’t. No one is asked him to choose, it’s already been chosen.

Nobody had control over who went. Oskar didn’t have to choose. In most situations you don’t choose. You’re not supposed to. That’s the tragedy of this book: Although Oskar wished that his mother had died at that time, if he had to sit down and choose while both his parents were alive I guarantee that he wouldn’t be able to.

Please. Read this book. I’ve never been more in love with a book in my entire life. It changes everything that you know about parents, no matter how old you are. If you’re an angry teen, and confused child, or a mature adult.

Everybody hurts.

He's Not The Main Character For No Reason. Everyone Loves Him!

Poor Romeo.

He's so innocent, loving Rosaline because she's so beautiful when he doesn't even know what love is.

Poor Romeo.

Rejected by his one and only love. The most perfect girl in the world. "The all-seeing sun ne'er saw her match since first the world begun."

Oh- but then Juliet comes along and it's goodbye Rosaline and hello Juliet!

I don't think people realize how perfect Romeo and Juliet is to read at our age. Not only is Juliet exactly our age, but it completely relates to our new feelings about love and just being a young person in the world in general. Romeo is 16 and thinks he loves one girl and one girl only. And then all of a sudden Juliet comes out of no where and all thoughts of Rosaline are lost.

Let's be honest here- how many times has this happened, and will happen to us in our adolescent lifetime? Or just our life, when you think about it.

I love how normal Romeo is. Behind all the unusually young marriages and people who are so much older than you asking to marry you and the crazy sword fights that break out, all the things that are weird for us and hard to understand, there is Romeo.

I sometimes wonder if Shakespeare intentionally created Romeo as a normal person. But what is "normal" for us? Everything else written in this play was considered "normal" back in that time period. Was Romeo supposed to be the "not normal" person? Was Shakespeare keeping in mind that times were changing and soon what was normal wouldn't be? Maybe he knew that, and knew that Romeo would change from the different person to the person who was easiest to understand and relate to? Or maybe he didn't mean anything at all.

It's quite possible.

All I know right now is that underneath all the confusion and frustration you can find Romeo. And once you translate his language into something you can understand, you can say, "Thank goodness there is some one so innocent and sweet, someone I can relate too."

And by the way... Has anyone else noticed that Romeo has been the only person who hasn't picked a fight yet? While watching the movie and class, and even again when reading I kept asking myself during the fight scene, "Where is Romeo?" Just another reason why he is so perfect.

My advice, just try to forget about how hard everything is... just for a little. And read some Romeo. He is so peaceful, so easy, Luhrmann, so cute. :)

Romeo is an excellent character... I wish he were real.