Memories Worth Fighting For

A Much Needed Reminder from The Giver.

Currently Reading: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Think of your most cherished memories. The happiest, most contented, safe feelings you’ve ever had.

There are several I can think of for myself…Laughing and singing badly on the St. Lawrence River with some of my oldest friends… My family decorating our forest-worthy-sized Christmas tree with familiar, funky, and beautiful ornaments while carols from childhood play on our stereo in the background…Staring out at the New Mexico landscape from the top of Chimney Rock, not a single car, house, or person to be seen for miles and miles… Waking up next to a gorgeous man, with him caressing my arm, smiling and staring into my eyes…. My last night in college, spent in the local bar with some amazing people until close when everyone sang the traditional close song before randomly bursting into our Alma Mater… So much laughter, silliness and comfort that all make my heart swell in my chest like the Grinch's at the end of the story it’s so full of love and joy…

Now think of your worst memories. The ones you would wipe from your mind if you could. The ones that make your heart ache and your eyes sting with tears.

My first truly intense heartbreak… Watching my mother eulogize her brother as he lies still in the coffin behind her, eerily looking like he’s just napping… The misery of months filled with panic attacks so horrible I felt glued to my bed, wide-eyed with fear night after night… The shockwave of pain sent through my arm as cloth lightly brushed against my staph-infected skin at age eleven… Repeat images playing on television of the destruction and nightmare come to life that were the collapsing World Trade Centers… The vacant, ghost-like look on my best friend’s face as she emptily hugged me at the funeral for her first love… The agony my father and family face every day now as we adjust to his new state of paralysis… So many moments and looks of deep exhaustion and depression that make my heart literally feel as if someone is twisting it in my chest, attempting to pull it free so it won’t ever have to feel again…

Now, I want you to imagine a world in which you never had to experience any of those worst memories. No horrors, no pain, no hurt, no depression, no anxiety. The catch? You would have to sacrifice all those cherished experiences as well.

Would you do it? Would you trade in those wonderful moments of exquisite happiness to never experience any of that anguish?

In Lois Lowry’s The Giver, twelve-year-old Jonas exists in just such a world; a world devoid of the extremes of emotions and so obsessed with "sameness" that its citizens can’t even experience color. However, the perfection of Jonas's community comes crashing down around him when he is selected to become the new, highly respected Receiver of Memory. In this job, Jonas receives all the memories of worlds past from a man called The Giver, carrying this burden so the rest of the community don't have to. He discovers the wonders of sledding, sunbathing, family, and love, but in turn learns of the monstrosities of war, the intense pain of injuries as small as sunburn and as large as shattering your leg bone, and the horrible truths about the cost of living in such a safe, but controlled environment.

Bizarrely, this novel spoke to me a lot more during this second reading, despite the fact that I’m now almost eleven years older than the main character. In a strange way, I relate more to Jonas's experiences now than I did when I was actually his age. This is largely because we find ourselves at the end of childhood without entirely becoming adults yet. 


However, I found myself jealous of Jonas and his peers because their end brings a certain beginning.


At the Ceremony of Twelve, his future will be decided as he is given a career field to pursue for the rest of his life. When I graduated from college a year ago, I somewhat thought my ceremony would have the same results. I’d come out with a direction and a path to my future. Instead, I was shoved out of my safe community and placed at a fork in the road with hundreds of options… and I feel frozen to the spot with fear.

Almost hilariously, the fears that have me glued to the spot are summed up nicely in a conversation Jonas has with The Giver in the middle of the novel. He indignantly cries that it’s not fair that he lives in a world without the opportunity to choose anything, agreeing with The Giver that it doesn’t matter how small the decision is, it’s “the choosing that’s important” (Lowry 98). However, The Giver points out that people might make mistakes and suddenly it dawns on Jonas how dangerous it is to allow people to choose their own destinies.

“What if they were allowed to choose their own mate? And chose wrong?” Jonas asks. Continuing this thought process, “almost laughing at the absurdity”, he ponders, “Or what if… they chose their own jobs?” (Lowry 98).

Over and over, this has been the fear running through my head, the thought that keeps me from taking a step in any direction. What if I choose wrong? What if I’m not qualified to do this? Will I be able to fix the mistakes I make if I choose to make them?

I’m embarrassed that living in this utopian society where the choice would be made for me sounds pretty damn good right now. If I lived in Jonas’s community, I would be eleven years into a career path now, not trying to figure out my first step into a career. There’d be fewer options in the first place and money would be so much less of a factor! I wouldn’t feel overwhelmed by life and I’d be moving forward instead of standing still. God, that sounds so nice right now!

And how wonderful would it be if my father never had to experience any of the unbelievable pain he’s in? Wouldn’t it be great if we lived in a world without wars, without starvation, without heartache? It all really does sound ideal when you’re actually faced with life-changing decisions and pain, something most twelve-year-olds have never truly experienced, making this book infinitely more poignant now.

But what I love about this book is that it helps me remember why our world is still superior. Yes, it’s full of terrifying decisions and awful realities, but it’s also full of indescribable beauty and ecstasy that the members of Jonas’s community would never know. Those cherished memories? The love I’ve been enveloped in my whole life? They are what make this imperfect world so worth the bad stuff and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.