Fight Night

“Grandma says fragments are the only truth. Fragments of what? I asked her. Exactly! She said.”

Grandma imparts her particular brand of wisdom to Swiv, echoing the words of T. S. Eliot in his epic poem The Waste Land: “Against these fragments I have shored my ruins” (Line 431). Grandma’s many literary and philosophical allusions characterize her as highly educated. They also speak to the fragmentation of Grandma’s own life, in which she has lost family members to death and suicide.

“She can’t believe she keeps waking up alive and is really amazed and grateful about it which is what all the pamphlets at therapy say we’re supposed to be feeling about every new day.”

Swiv refers here to Grandma’s sense of gratitude. Again, her ability to live life to the fullest comes, at least partially, from her many experiences with death—particularly untimely death. This quotation also acknowledges that the family has been attending therapy. Mom’s traumatic experiences, Dad’s absence, and how all of this has affected Swiv are subjects ripe for therapeutic assistance.

“Fighting is so hard and yet we’re never supposed to stop!”

Swiv absorbs Grandma’s lessons about fighting, though not always in the correct ways. The word takes on both literal and figurative connotations here. She has been expelled from school for fighting with the other kids, and she fights to control her temper. She is also fighting to keep her family together and safe, a fight that stretches the resources of a nine-year-old child.