Clear View

While reading the novel Stitches: a Memoir by David Small, I realized that it is human nature to find inner peace while dealing with hard times and dysfunction. People have different ways of dealing with their hardship. As a result they become stronger individuals. In this book the character David finds his voice after losing it. Throughout David’s life he lived with his mother who had a mental illness and grew up in a dysfunctional household. David’s mother and father neglected and deceived him by not informing him that he had cancer. Thinking he was only going in for surgery to remove a cyst, he later discovered that it was thyroid cancer. Both of his parents kept his cancer a secret; however David was finally able to see the reality of his situation after battling his cancer.        

There were a couple of aspects in the book that caught my attention from the secretive nature and silence characteristics of Betty (David’s mother), the abusive and violent environment David lived in, and David’s use of art and imagination as forms of escape. Davids’ dysfunction allowed him to undergo self discovery and find his inner voice. This trapped my interest because it shows that the trials and disappointments of life give us the strength to be able to change.

In addition, David’s mother Betty also captured my attention with her strange parenting skills and quiet personality. Betty’s silent and secretive lifestyle leads David to discover his mother’s true identity, allowing him to choose a different path in life. Betty was far from a good mother, she did not show love and affection to her children. Betty was a mysterious woman battling a mental illness passed down by her mother. She never explained her mental illness or the reason for her madness so she would voice her anger by slamming kitchen cabinets and coughing. I believe she would slam the kitchen cabinets to relieve some of her built up anger. Never explaining to David what was really wrong caused him to grow up a confused and awkward child. He would escape his mother’s mental breakdowns by getting lost in his imagination to break away from the hostile environment. In addition to her mental illness and extreme outburst Betty was also living a secret life as a lesbian. Secretly having a relationship with her friend Mrs. Dillon, caused David to feel confused and betrayed. Finally, her odd behavior started to make sense to me; she was living a lie and she was unhappy with her life. Betty was born with her heart on the opposite side of her chest maybe that caused her to be a cold hearted woman? After finding out his mother was really lesbian and overcoming his own struggle with thyroid cancer, David slowly started putting the pieces to his puzzled life together.  Although David was following in his mother and grandmothers footsteps with the mental illness, in the end David chose his own path not to follow in his mothers footsteps.