THE FAULT IN OUR STARS--AND US (part 3)

What else can we learn from John Green's remarkable book?  What else might connect with us?  Here are two more examples:

1] At one point in the book, Hazel--again, the book's main character and narrator, a teenager who has cancer--sees a saying; an "Encouragement"; framed on a wall.  It said:  "Without pain, how could we know joy?"  But Hazel is not so sure it is true.  She thinks:  "This is an old argument in the field of Thinking About Suffering, and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries, but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not in any way affect the taste of chocolate."

When it comes to Moebius Syndrome, that passage connects with us in my view this way:  some would say then that, well, in some ways having Moebius Syndrome can be a benefit.  We come to understand that looks aren't everything.  That beauty truly is not skin-deep.  The friends we have are real friends who we know don't simply like us for surface things.   And so forth.

On the other hand, some with Moebius might say:  yeah, but the difficulties and the pain Moebius Syndrome causes simply aren't worth that.  That is something each of us must decide for him or herself.

2] There's another character in the book--Isaac.  He's another teen who has cancer.  In the story, he has a girlfriend named Mona.  They'd been a couple for a long time.  She apparently had never suggested that his cancer bothered her.  They'd pledged to love each other always.

But just as he was about to have important, major surgery--surgery that would leave him blind--Mona broke up with Isaac.  She told him that, regarding his surgery, his condition, his blindness, she "couldn't handle it."

Hazel:  "I was thinking about the word 'handle', and all the unholdable things that get handled."

Right on.  We of course don't know the answer to this question; but for those of us with Moebius Syndrome--how often do you think it happens that other, "normal" people don't want to be around us, don't want to have relationships with us, and they justify it to themselves by thinking--"I can't handle that"???

Maybe more often than we know.  And yet--how do you handle dying of cancer?  How do you handle having a child who is dying of cancer?  More often than we think, saying you "can't handle it" is kind of a flimsy excuse, isn't it?

"The Fault In Our Stars" sure makes you think.