a person who has learned a subject without the benefit of a teacher or formal education; a self-taught person.
I chose this picture because Renee, one of the narrators, reveals that this is the last film she watched with her husband before he died from cancer.
She starts the chapter wih a quote to describe how terminal illnesses consume a family:
"When illness enters a home, not only does it take hold of a body; it also weaves a dark web between hearts, a web where hope is trapped. Like a spider's thread drawn ever tighter around our projects, making it impossible to breathe, with each passing day, the illness was overwhelming our life."
This quote was particularily resounding because my mother is fighting cancer for the 3rd time in her life. Each time she was diagnosed, the illness crept into every facet of our family much like the cancer cells consume the body. As I watch her suffer the effects of chemo and the cancer itself, I struggle to maintain my compusure so that I can be a source of comfort her her. However, when I call her every night and I hear the weakness of her voice, it is like a fly vibrating a thread of the spider's web and I quickly compartmentalize my reactions before my fear is noticed. I dread knowing that I may have summoned the spider for its prey.
I am terribly sorry for your mother and the effects that her cancer has had on her, you, and your family. I too know the chilling effects that that disease can have on a family. A couple years ago, my mother got Skin Cancer right between her left eye and the bridge of her nose and frequently has to get cells removed from all over her body. I cannot describe the feelings it has cast upon my family and cannot imagine what it has cast upon yours and the narrator of the book's.
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