Walking in Anna's Shoes: Living Through Writing

Cold sweat trickles down Kate’s back as she stands over the hospital bed, watching the mother she cares for slowly pass away. The droning beep of the monitoring heart machine pierces through the air. Kate kisses her mother one last time, wiping warm tears from her watery eyes, and sluggishly begins to leave. Step by step out of the door the pain intensifies in her heart, but Kate must keep staying strong and move on. A new chapter of her life begins here. Much like Kate, Anna Quindlen undergoes with the catastrophic death of her mother dying of cancer, leaving her arriving at college with an entire new perspective. Her significant childhood and maturement, experiencing the death of her mother, and giving birth to three children influenced Anna Quindlen with her writings.

Growing up and maturing as a young lady and raised into the exquisite author she remains today, Anna Quindlen voices her opinion in her works. As a teenager, the road to success appeared bumpy when Quindlen attempted suicide twice. She wanted to get away from her life and pass on to a peaceful place. Her suicide undertakes wrought a new, positive attitude for Quindlen entering education and her new careers (“Anna”). Entering college Quindlen decided to take care of her ill mother. Ought to furlough from school for awhile and reside in taking care of her mother, she spent months by her mother’s side, “learn[ing] the ugly truths about death from cancer” (“Anna”). Quindlen

refuses to let people walk all over her, unlike Fran in her novel Black and Blue, and instead Quindlen takes action writing on abortion and childcare (“Anna” 480). In Black and Blue, Bobby abuses Fran and takes advantage of her, with his voice “like a confessor, like a seducer” persuading Frannie to believe situations far from the truth (Quindlen, Black 3). Disagreeing with controversial topics, Quindlen displays her belief in the power of equal liberty and fair treatment to women by writing about it. All the troubles Quindlen faced growing up, put her in circumstances that instigate topics she chooses to write on (“Anna” 480). Struggles and fights Anna Quindlen overcame throughout her life and the ideas and opinions learned as a child influenced her works.

A tragic event struck Quindlen when her mother passed away with ovarian cancer and influenced her whole world. In the novel, One True Thing, the main character relives the death of her mother through the character in the story’s plot, and it shows how a person retains a freedom of death. The one major part of her life that seems to follow all of her writings and encourages Quindlen to compose different dissertations always applies back to her mom’s death. These prospects show that Quindlen truly loved her mother and adored her with every piece of her heart (“Anna”). In various newspaper columns, Quindlen writes and points out experiences shared with her mother. Once again, Quindlen records assets of her mom’s passing away, which clearly affected her life then, and affects it now (“Anna” 479). Defining out the life ahead of her, Quindlen’s mom died leaving a complete new world for Anna Quindlen to journey into. Returning to school after her mother parted, it helped her venture into a new grown-up woman, with a variant perspective like never before. New ideas spurred into her writings that she

possibly never believed she possessed (“Anna”). Moral problems, her thoughts on religion, and life itself gave contemplating issues for Quindlen to ponder or engross on. Her mom’s death brought meaning and thought to Quindlen, showing that life portrays wonderfulness, needing to be cherished and not for granted (Quindlen, Short 34). Quindlen tells people to find a life and enjoy that life because in one moment everything contains the possibility of disappearing (16). But Quindlen also reminds her fellow readers that “life is short” sparking the irony of how thousands of people in the world forget the true meaning of life and how wonderful it appears (25). The former Fran, known at the end of Black and Blue as Beth, remains the opposite and states that she “would have a happy life now, if only [her son lived there]” (Quindlen, Black 363). What Beth needs is the cherishment of life and to accept the fact that she wants her son, but he resumes far away from her forever. Quindlen’s mother’s death caused her to write numerous expositions concerning her life, which helped cope with the decease.

Each child Quindlen gave birth