In My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult, Kate Fitzgerald is diagnosed with Leukemia which affects every member of her family. The terrible cycle of denial, anger, depression, and acceptance explains how each family member deals with Kate’s death and grief. Each member of her family has a different way of dealing with Kate’s death. Being sick and diagnosed with an illness doesn’t just affect the one suffering the illness, but everyone else around them that loved and cared for them. My Sister’s Keeper is depressing, but at the same time it’s overall just a good life experience book. Have you ever had someone really close to you have cancer? Well I have and it’s so hard to deal with. You never know what may happen next. Anything could happen to anyone. Cancer is not something you just say “Oh, well I have cancer.” It’s more of a “Oh no, I have cancer, what do I do to treat it and cure it?”

In the book My Sister’s Keeper, Anna Fitzgerald shows her acceptance of the Kubler-Ross cycle which is the type of illness that her older sister Kate is dealing with. Anna hates to admit that her sister will die regardless of what the family tries to do. Therefore, she tries to save herself and Kate from any more suffering by gaining legal rights to do what she wants to do with her body, despite what her parents tell her. Finding out that someone you love and care about has cancer, isn’t easy to cope with. Anna knows that her parents, especially her mother, Sara, will go to any extremes to make Kate win the battle against cancer or at least live longer. Anna feels as if she is being treated wrong and wants to stand up for herself since nobody else will. She is tired of being used to help Kate live. She is just a human like Kate is and feels the need to be treated the same.

Kate and Anna also have a brother named Jessie and he is handling the situation a little different than the others. He is going through the anger stage. In the novel Jesse’s, often forgotten by his parents. Feeling ignored by everyone, Jesse acts up a lot which will concern his parents. Jesse doesn’t know any other way to get his parents attention besides to act up. Some of the acts include secretly burning down areas in the neighborhood and illegal things such as using drugs. His parents didn’t know at the time that Jesse burned places down and had been using illegal drugs, but Jesse liked that he was getting attention from his parents. Jesse feels worthless as he says “But inside, I’m burning just as hot as I was when that fire caught at the warehouse. What made me believe I might be worth something, even now? What made me think I could save my sister, when I can’t even save myself?” (page 98)

Sara is the biggest one most concerned, which is completely normal considering she is the mother. Sara is going through denial in the Kubler-Ross cycle. Sara is willing to do anything and everything to save Kate from dying even if she has to ignore and use her other two children Anna and Jesse. She seems willing to forgets about everything in her life like her job, hobbies, and the rest of her family, to see Kate survive or live longer. Sara feels that if Kate is her top priority and main focus then Kate will have all of the support she needs to go on with life even if it includes relying on Anna to provide Kate with necessary body parts. While pregnant with Anna, Sara said that “...I have not really considered the specifics of this child. I have thought of this daughter only in terms of what she will be able to do for the daughter I already have...The again, my dreams for her are no less exalted; I plan for her to save her sister’s life.” Page 100

I can somewhat relate to all of the characters in My Sister’s Keeper. My best friend Gabby had the same type of cancer that Kate was diagnosed with. The positive side to this is that gabby has been cancer free for about 3 years now! I went through everything with her. Having to watch someone you love and care about so much to have to go through stuff like that honestly just kills. At the time I tried to do everything I could to make her smile. It was pretty amazing though how strong and positive she stayed through the whole thing. I have never met such a strong girl in my life. I went through the same emotional stages as everyone else did in this book. At the end of the day, you just have to stay positive and hope that tomorrow will be better.