Grief

After reading chapter 5, I felt really bad for Holden.  Not only does a family member die, but one who was younger than him.  If I was in his position, I would be really spooked to already outlive someone.  But I can't really relate to what he's feeling because I don't think I've ever had something of that nature happen to me.  Nobody in my family that I've met has died in my family.  I mean, yeah my dad's parents are gone, but they died before I was even born.  I might feel bad if I had met them and remembered them, but for some reason I don't.  Whenever I think about it, I feel like a bad person.  What kind of person doesn't feel bad about their grandparents being dead?

Anyway, my impressions on Holden didn't really change that much.  I thought and still do think that he's a pretty awesome guy who says what he wants because after all, this is his journal, right?  After reading this I  think I understand why he doesn't do very good in school.  I think it's because he doesn't want to be as good as Allie was, or at least as good he remembers Allie to be.  When someone is gone, all you have left of them is memories and some personal items, so you don't want to mess those up because then your slowly getting rid of the person who's gone.  Holden obviously doesn't want to get rid of Allie, so he gets bad grades to keep the same comparison of smartness to Allie.  That could be a reason, I don't know, but it makes sense to me.  I think this shows that Holden is still dealing with Allie's death, and may end up dealing with it for the rest of his life.  He still has his hand that can't make a fist to remind him, and he has his memories that he'll never forget.

After reading about Holden's reaction to Allie being dead, I thought about what I would if my sister died before I did, any family member for that matter.  Like I said, I really don't have any experiences with grief, so I don't know how I would react.  I'm already pretty reserved with my emotions already, so I don't think it will be as crazy as punching windows out of my garage, but it makes my wonder...