14. Moonlight Sonata

November 16, 1959

The house is quiet. I couldn’t sleep so I went over to the baby’s room to check on her. She was fast asleep. Her breath came out slowly and evenly. She looked so calm and peaceful. Yesterday I was outside, cleaning the garden when I looked up at the oak tree. Nestled in its trunks was a birds nest. Two young chicks were inside waiting for their mother. Then it came to me.

The unconditional love. These birds loved their mother unconditionally and their mother felt the same. Birds did not express themselves the way people do, but they showed their affection in different ways: providing food and shelter for their offspring. I realized that all those years that my mother had cared for me and my father, she did purely out of love not duty. She would have loved me unconditionally, flaws and all. So why should this be any different for my baby? Sure she wasn’t exactly what I expected, but that doesn’t change her being my daughter…

She slept calmly that night. It was a beautiful full moon outside the window. The house was still. I wrapped Annabelle in a blanket to keep her warm and quietly closed the door.

2. Cookies

July 5, 1956

The doctors said I would be due in the next month. For the 4th, we had some of our neighbors over for a house warming party at our new house. It’s exactly how I imagined it would be: comfortable, welcoming, white picket fence. One of the couples on our block is also expecting. We were planning to have many play dates together. I love this neighborhood. It really is the perfect place to raise a family. No crime, friendly neighbors and Mrs. Smith from across the street told me that the school system is excellent. I think I’m going to make cookies today to thank Mrs. Anderson for the excellent apple pie yesterday.

1. New Hope? So I thought.

May 27, 1956

I am now 6 months pregnant and could not be happier. At first, the morning sickness was awful. I would wake up throwing up and feeling terrible for the rest of the day. Poor Thomas had to go to work with only coffee for breakfast because I was too sick to cook anything. Thankfully, this new drug I have been taken has definitely helped. I don’t feel sick anymore and I can wake up without feeling nauseous. It was a horrible feeling waking up nauseous. Its uncontrollable, the feeling like something is tearing its way out of your body. But lately, after taking the pills, I’ve been feeling peaceful. I hope everything with the baby goes well. It’s our first. We’ve already decorated a room for the baby and every night we start imagining what our new life will be. If its a girl, will she like to learn ballet or tap dance? If its a boy, will he like baseball like his father? We have so much to look forward to.

Lessons from Foer

I felt that Foer uses various levels of expression to convey the experience of loss: images, letters and first hand narratives. I think one of the most important lessons from this novel is that an experience can be expressed in a variety of different mediums. One does not have to give a descriptive narrative to elicit an effect, sometimes the effect can be achieved through other mediums as well. By making the novel a collection of these mediums and perspectives, the author has succeeded in making the experience more rich and profound. Also, adding to this, there is a virtual effect in the novel where things that don’t happen to Oskar directly still have an effect on him. Even if we did not have a personal link to someone who died in 9/11, it does not mean that the events did not impact us. So by having Oskar’s Stuff that Happened to Me, Foer is translating what we do into our own lives on paper.