My Sister's Keeper

This is a response to the book My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. I recommend reading the book or even seeing the movie if you read this... The piece is in the perspective of the main character, Anna, and she has a sister named Kate who has leukemia.

"In my first memory, I am three years old and I am trying to kill my sister. ... She didn't stand a chance against me. ... As we got older, I didn't seem to exist, except in relation to her. ... I would count the ways. Poison, sprinkled on her cereal. A wicked undertow off the beach. Lightning striking. ... In the end though, I did not kill my sister. She did it all on her own. ... Or at least this is what I tell myself...." The reason this lawyer is here -- to sue my parents for the right to my own body; but also to stop saving my sister. I am my sister's keeper. It's not like I want to stop her from getting well again, but I am sick of having to skip practices or school events to get surgery that I don't even need. This needs to change -- right now.


Mom thinks that this lawsuit is extremely unnecessary, but not me. Even though I know that Kate will die sometime before all of her so-called "friends" will, I do not want to help her any longer. What is the point of helping someone that is already going to pass away right before your eyes? Julia, she got the entire story out of me; I am way more comfortable with her than Campbell. The only thing is that I am telling Campbell that I want him to continue defending me, but to Julia, I told her that it needed to stop so my life could be normal again. But when has my life ever been normal? Surgeries, transplants, blood transfers, white blood cell switches, platelets given away -- all things no normal thirteen-year-old should be going through.


Three Weeks Later...


The lawsuit is final. I am officially done with surgeries, transfers -- everything. But since Kate hasn't known anything about the lawsuit for the whole two months, how am I supposed to tell her that she will die in a calm, not worried voice? I want to help her; but without everything that I have went through before. Though, surprisingly she has had a miracle come upon her. She has gradually been getting better, and she hasn't coughed up blood, hasn't had any new bruises -- nothing. This could be a good thing after all, but the only thing I wonder is if it will stay like this forever.


The Next Week...


I shouldn't of said what I had last week -- Kate is back in the hospital, with a lot of machines that I have never seen before and lots of doctors are eagerly trying to help her. According to Dr. Chance, her amount of white blood cells are extremely low, and since she is losing blood so quickly now, her platelets are also rapidly fading. Maybe just one more time... Scratch that! I am not going back to having my parents control me. If she dies, what's going to be the difference? I knew that she was going to be gone eventually the whole time.


The Next Day...


Kate died last night at the hospital. I regret what I said before; I will miss her. Especially since last night right before I left to not see her go, she told me that I was her only friend. That really touched me, but I knew that I was going to have to let her go -- and if I would have stayed at the hospital to see her fade into her deep sleep that will last forever and never go away, I would have never survived that. This is horrible, what am I to do now? She was also my only friend.

I remember everything that happened when we were little -- even all of the times and dates where Kate needed chemo-therapy -- everything. Now that she is gone, it seems like my life is almost incomplete. The part that I remember most was the first time when she needed chemo-therapy and we were going to go to the mall. When you have to have chemo-therapy, you begin to lose hair. Kate thought that she was a freak when she noticed that she was losing hair, but mom and I did something I thought that I would never do in my life. We shaved our heads together in the basement -- just to make Kate feel better.

When you have a sister, it is almost your duty to protect her; no matter how strong or weak you are, and no matter how big or small you are. This was my job to do, and I got carried away in my mind and just let Kate free and something terrible happened. A big mistake on my part, and I never should have filed that lawsuit.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This is a fiction piece that I wrote from the book My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult, and it is in the main character's perspective. Anna, the main character, has a sister who is sixteen -- and she has acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). Kate, Anna's sister, has gone through the same amount of surgeries that Anna has, but Anna isn't sick -- she has to give organs and platelets to Kate. I haven't gotten this far in the book yet, but this piece is about what I assume will happen later in the novel.