letters about litrature

we did a letter to an author we liked to tell him how we reacted to the book. I was picked as a semi-finalist with my letter to Mark Peter Huges.

Dear Mark Peter Hughes,

     Last year we had to read ten books and “compete” against other teams. I was assigned your book I Am the Wallpaper. I have two older sisters and three younger sisters. My older sisters have both physical and mental disability. My younger sisters have physical disabilities. I have both physical and mental disabilities but don’t think less of me.  My sisters have worst disability and come before me. They need more help so I am left alone most of the time. But sometimes that is not a bad thing. Then I don’t have to fake a smile and pretend to like being around them. It feels like they mostly focus on my sisters. Before we get too much further I only live with my mom and two older sisters (Lilly who is 16 and Elsie who is 19). My mom and dad got divorced when I was two. Dad got remarried and moved to Florida. They eventually had kids (savannah who is six and Madison who is four). We all have disability me having the least problematic disabilities I fell as if I’m forgotten. 

    Floey has to deal with a lot of problems like her ex-friend and ex-boyfriend. My family has to deal with a lot of disability’s. Lilly has both mental and physical disabilities. She has bipolar with rage, dyslexia, possible cluster B personality, and pettimel seizures in the frontal lobe of her brain. She’s is in a special school to help her with her disability’s. Elsie has both mental and physical disabilities. Elsie has distimia, anxiety, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), arthralgia, migraines, and has language learning disability she has to have special help in her college called disabilities office and trio. Savannah has only physical disabilities.  Savannah is blind because of a stroke she had during delivery. She also has autism, she had a blood disorder, and she has a seizure disorder because of the stroke during birth. Madison has only physical disabilities. Madison was born with congestive heart failure and had to have surgery at 6 months old. She was born with clubbed feet which mean her feet turned the wrong way and she had surgery at a year old to have that fixed. She has a feeding tube, and she has to have a nebulizer treatment three times a day for breathing problems. I have both physical and mental disorders.  I have migraines, anxiety, dyslexia, PTSD, I had ADHD when I was five but I have mostly grown out it I still can’t sit still. I also sometimes get gray hands, arms, and joints. We still don’t know what causes that. Lilly has recently got that but we only have a guess it’s a side effect of the medicine we take.

     I try to do new things the main character Floey does. Floey dyed her hair purple and people made fun of her they called her eggplant.  When I first moved here (to Massachusetts) from Maine I was picked on because of my red hair. They picked on me because my parents were divorce and because I lived on the street known as “the poor street”. They didn’t know how much their words hurt me because I would just smile and pretend to be fine and continue as if it didn’t ruin my day. This contained for also two years till people found another thing to make fun of.

     Floey feels as if she is the wallpaper. I feel that way. Sometimes even now when we are going through what we are now with all this cancer. Between the cancer and helping Lilly and Elsie and watching Sophie (a family friend) sometimes I feel as if I’m forgotten. I don’t mind I normally keep to myself. I go to my room and listen to music because I don’t really have a big social life. Because of my move from Maine and everything that happened up there I never really trusted people as easily so I don’t have a lot of friends. When I do I trust its genuine. I’ve also lost friends in the move from Maine to here and I’ve lost friends here.  So I’m normally alone going through this but I’m not really a talker. I’m a writer.

     The cancer runs in our family. My grandma Boston has had lung cancer and thyroid cancer once. One thanksgiving of 2013 her pet scan showed that she has either cancer or an infection in her bladder, brain, and left kidney. She has also decided if she has cancer she will not get treatment. My aunt Debbie has had one bout of breast cancer and thyroid cancer. We are still waiting for the results of the biopsy to see if she has another bout of cancer.  My grandpa Boston had prostate cancer that then spread going into his stomach and it turned into esophageal cancer and possible bone marrow cancer. He died on his birthday from his cancer. My mom has pre-cancerous cells in her cervix. My great grandma had colon cancer. She survived and died of old age. Great uncle had melanoma that matasized into his lymphoids.  Great aunt had breast cancer. She died of pneumonia later on but survived of cancer. My grandma Audibert had untreated uterine cancer. She had died from the cancer.

     This cancer is so big in our family me and my siblings and cousins need to start getting mamagrames at age 35 instead of 45. We also have a higher risk of getting cancer because we are a DES generation children.

     So after reading your story I learned its okay to be different even if you get picked on or are left in the shadows once and a while. Sometimes I’m left alone, okay most of the time but I need to grow as a person. This book shows me that I can work through everything I just stated through time though I always hide from it.  My favorite quote is says “swallow your fears, wipe off your tears, let go of your darkest years. Chin up. Smile. Walk away.” By anonymous. To me it says even though I have been through all this stuff in my life I can smile through my darkest years and walk away. Not as if it’s never happened because that is impossible but because I am a strong individual and I have gotten this far I can go farther. If I can so can Floey.

 

Sincerely

Hannah Audibert