Welcome to the comments and discussion of Chapter 9: God Never Gives You More Than You Can Handle of the book, I’m Just A Person by Tig Notaro! Catch up on Chapter 1: Over My Mother’s Dead Body, Chapter 2: Are You My Mother, Chapter 3: The Downfall, Chapter 4: Saying Good-Bye, Chapter 5: Letting Go, Chapter 6: Diagnosis, Chapter 7: Largo, and Chapter 8: Looking Down.
Let’s get started! Chapter 9!
OMG, this chapter. Short and sweet! I LOVED the stand that Tig took. The “I can assure you that C-Diff, the death of my mother, and breast cancer were each, individually, more than I could handle” approach. I cannot tell you how many times people tried to sugar coat shit…and when I say shit I mean my mom dying and then cancer. A good friend of mine lost her mother about two months before I lost mine and we recently had a conversation where she told me that people explain that her mother is always with her and we agreed that when we each hear things like that, we both roll our eyes and think, “yea, but having my mother physically here would be much much better….duh.”
Tig writes, “When I heard, ‘Wow, that sounds really hard,’ or even an awkward, ‘I don’t know what to say…’ it was tremendously comforting. I felt as thought someone was really talking to me and considering what was actually going on, and, most importantly, was willing to succumb to the moment instead of covering it up with a one-size-fits-all platitude.” It takes a lot of courage to actually sink into a situation someone describes to you of their heartache or heartbreak. It takes vulnerability to hold it for a moment and actually think what it would mean to your own life. Not everybody can do this. They look at an awful situation and immediately want to paint it with flowers instead of letting it sit and stink.
What did you think of this chapter?
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Thanks for joining us for Chapter 9: God Never Gives You More Than You Can Handle of I’m Just A Person! Join in next Monday for Chapter 10: R2, Where Are You?.
If you’re just joining us, here are some logistics:
We will talk about a chapter each Monday until the book is done. Then, we’ll use one more Monday to talk about general feelings from the book and anything else you’d like to discuss. Join in, in the comments every week! At the end, we’ll have a book club discussion via video chat! Also, there will probably be spoilers. Read along with us!
How are you enjoying our young adult cancer book club?
