A Summer to Die

by Lois Lowry

The hardest part about living in the same room with someone is that it’s hard to keep anything hidden. I don’t mean the unmatched, dirty socks or the fourteen crumpled papers with tries at an unsuccessful poem on them, although those are the things that upset Molly, that made her draw the line. I mean the parts of yourself that are private: the tears you want to shed sometimes for no reason, the thoughts you want to think in a solitary place, the words you want to say aloud to hear how they sound, but only to yourself. It’s important to have a place to close a door on those things,

look she gives to things that are slightly foolish and very lovable. She smiles, and her eyes look as if they can see back into her memory, into all the things that have gone into making a person what they are.

It’s a perfect place for a writer—the solitude stimulates imagination, I think.

The light was coming in through the kitchen window onto his face: soft light now; it had become late afternoon, when all the harsh shadows are gone.

And deep, way deep inside me somewhere was something else that kept me warm on the walk home, even though the sun was going down and the wind was coming over the piles of snow on either side of the road, blowing stinging powder into my eyes. It was the fact that Will Banks had called me beautiful.

It’s almost noisy, the quietness, we are all so aware of it.

“Wouldn’t it be great,” she said slowly, “to be married to someone who felt that way about you, so that he smiled like that whenever he thought of you?”

Why did I want to cry when he finished talking? I don’t even know what ephemeral means. But something inside me welled up like hot fudge sauce—sweet, and warm, and so rich that you can’t bear to have very much. It was because someone who was a real friend was having the exact same feelings I was having, about something that was more important to me than anything else. I bet there are people who go through a whole life and never experience that. I sat there with my hand around the warm mug of tea, and smiled at Will.

is so good to have friends who understand how there is a time for crying and a time for laughing, and that sometimes the two are very close together.

He is fascinated by the technical aspects of photography: by the chemicals, and the inner workings of cameras. I don’t care so much about those things. I care about the expressions on people’s faces, the way the light falls onto them, and the way the shadows are in soft patterns and contrast.

“But you know, Meg,” Mom said, smoothing the quilt with her fingers, “when the big, difficult things come, people like Molly and me aren’t ready for them. We’re so accustomed to laughing. It’s harder for us when the time comes that we can’t laugh.”

She needs us, for our love, but she doesn’t need us for anything else now.”

“Dying is a very solitary thing. The only thing we can do is be there when she wants us there.”

TIME GOES ON, AND YOUR life is still there, and you have to live it. After a while you remember the good things more often than the bad. Then, gradually, the empty silent parts of you fill up with sounds of talking and laughter again, and the jagged edges of sadness are softened by memories.

Nothing will be the same, ever, without Molly. But there’s a whole world waiting, still, and there are good things in it.

Now the distance seemed short. Perhaps it is part of a place becoming familiar that makes it seem closer; perhaps it is just a part of growing up.

“You made me beautiful,” I said shyly. “Meg,” he laughed, putting one arm over my shoulders, “you were beautiful all along.”

what is real, will always be real, is the fierce, immutable love that holds families together—and the helpless anguish when it is threatened by loss. And the fact that memories always remain and soften that loss: that is real too.