(Disclaimer: This reflection has a lot of little spoilers here and there, but I think it is important for the context of the writing. I still think if you are interested in this article, you should consider reading the book.)
Hi friends, thanks for tuning in for another book of the week! This week, we will discuss another lovely Jodi Picoult book I read over the summer, My Sister’s Keeper. The book follows Anna, a young girl with one purpose: to be a perfect genetic match for her sister, Kate, who has leukemia and needs a blood transfusion. The second Anna was born, her umbilical cord was given to Kate. For the rest of Anna’s life, she donated different medical materials until she was asked to donate a kidney. Anna, feeling like she has no other choice, decides to go the legal route and fight for medical emancipation from her parents, who are trying to force her to give a kidney.
While I think the book takes cop-outs later in the plot to resolve this tension, I think it does a beautiful job framing this really gray and obscure moral dilemma — who should come first? And as we reflect on this in our own lives, it gives us a moment to think about all the times we’ve sacrificed parts of ourselves for those we cherish. How far would you be willing to go in the name of love?
I don’t think Anna didn’t love her sister; rather, her opposition to giving her kidney away might even be an act of love. Anna’s main argument for why she doesn’t want to give the kidney is pretty simple. She is afraid that giving away parts of herself will continue for the rest of her life, since Kate will never be completely healed or not need medical attention. Anna is aware that giving away her kidney also means signing her sister up for a lifetime of sitting in a hospital bed as life passes her by. Kate, by the end of the book, had missed out on many of the simple things in life. I think Anna saw this and knew that refusing to give her kidney could possibly save her sister from further suffering.
Interestingly, it’s revealed later that Kate herself did not want to go forward with the kidney transplant, even if it’d save her life. She did not want to continue burdening Anna as her genetic match. Most of all, she was exhausted by her fight with leukemia.
I think in some ways the author included this as a bit of a cop-out to the original moral dilemma. If a person dying doesn’t want to continue to live, that essentially closes the case. However, it is scary to do something you know will hurt someone you love, but maybe that hurt will save them from further pain in the future.
I think it is important to ask yourself from what place of heart you are doing things from. While many would argue that Anna was right to be selfish here (and some may not even see it as selfish), I’d argue that it was not the message the book was trying to convey. The book does not ask you to decide who was in the right, but to observe the place of heart each character was in, and what that would lead them to do, even if it wasn’t in their best interest. Think of the lawyer, Campbell, who isn’t getting paid for helping Anna out, or the mother, who also sacrificed for Kate and their family. I think we are made to ask ourselves: What are the most loving decisions to make? Fortunately, I’ve never been in a position where I was asked to sacrifice something large for the life of someone else, but we should recognize the amount we are giving to those around us. When you say you love someone, do you say that in a way that means you make them dinner if they get sick, or would go somewhere far to pick them up? Or does love even require sacrifice like that? Is simply feeling your love for them enough, or does that feeling deserve to be expressed? And if you weren’t able to do these things, does that mean you love this person less than someone who was?
The book ends in a horribly tragic way that I won’t spoil here, but you should read it if you want to know what ends up happening. Stay tuned for next week’s book!
