Family Is Everything (Theme Essay)

In the three stories that I have picked they all tie in with the importance of family. These stories are What I Pawn You May Redeem by Sherman Alexie, Lullaby by Leslie Marmon Silko, and Domingo by Oscar Casares. The common theme for these stories that keeps going through my mind is how important family really is. Throughout these stories they talk about coping with loss of a family member. The characters in these three stories are tough, they know exactly what they have to do to be able to go on everyday. Even though it was hard for each and every one of them they knew they had to do it.Without family life can be hard, it feels like we can’t survive but somehow through everything we find a way to seek their attention and start living again.
    In Sherman Alexie’s story What You Pawn I Will Redeem, Jackson Jackson is on a journey to make $999 to buy back his grandmothers regalia. It was amazingly important to him because that is all he has left of her. He did all that he could to get it back, even though it was very unsuccessful. “I took my grandmother’s regalia and walked outside. I knew that solitary yellow bead was part of me” (Alexie 457). He felt whole again once that regalia was finally in his arms again. He could feel how apart of it he was, how it warmed his soul. After losing her a long time ago, having that regalia brought back a lot of comfort for him to know that she is with him always. “I wrapped myself in my grandmother’s regalia and breathed her in” (Alexie 457). He could feel her, smell her, touch her through her dress. It was like she was in her presence again. I think it helped him regain confidence to have a piece of his family with him, so he doesn’t feel so alone. “They all watched me dance with my grandmother. I was my grandmother, dancing.” (Alexie 457). He was his grandmother. He has the same flesh and the same blood as her. I think he missed her a lot more than he thought.
    Lullaby by Leslie Marmon Silko shares Ayah and Chato’s experience of losing their children to the government. It shows you what its like living on the bare minimums then having everything fall apart. The go through the process of the loss of their children and how to cope with it. “She did not sleep for a long time after they took her children” (Silko 98). Losing them to someone else hurt her the most, because she was not able to hardly ever see them. It’s all that she can think about. She was afraid that someone would harm them, or else they would eventually die. As a mother her children were her life and to have them taken from her it’s like they had taken her life. “She carried the pain in her belly and it was fed by everything that she saw” (Silko 99). Her home and her surroundings brought back memories to her about how her children act. Everything that she would see fed that pain and made it greater. Everything that she saw would show her children’s faces and make her think about them. I don’t think she ever thought that she would ever experience something this tough and this emotional. She is a very strong woman and I don’t think a lot of people recognized that.
    Domingo by Oscar Casares talks about the life of Domingo living in America with the absence of his family. He flashes back to what happens in the past with his daughter and his wife. He feels like he is the blame for them losing their daughter when it was just an accident. He learns how to go through every day without them. “He wished he could go back and be with his wife, cross the bridge and buy a ticket for the next bus headed south” (Casares 77). The mistakes that happened pushed him and his wife apart. He wished more than anything that he could take back what happened, but there was no way for him to do that. “His wife had asked him to build a fire pit so she could heat water to wash clothes. He turned around for a second. Even now he had trouble understanding why his wife had left him with the baby.” By this point his daughter had fallen into the fire and was hurt permanently. He felt as if everything was all his fault. His daughter only lived a month after she was hurt. It literally changed his life forever. Domingo didn’t think he would be able to move on from this experience but he knew that he needed to.
    We seek attention from family that has passed on, they give us strength, courage and hope that we will never take on things by ourselves. The loss of a family member can be tough, even if it isn’t losing them to death. The characters in this story experience loss in 2 different ways. For two stories it was death and for one it wasn’t. Family literally is absolutely everything, you may not think so now but later on you will. Theses people in these stories need their family members, they miss them. It’s hard to move on and let go when you don’t want to. Like Ayah, letting her children go with the government, and having her know they are growing up without her. Domingo blaming himself for his daughter’s death when clearly it was an accident. Also Jackson for missing his grandmother but finding comfort when he found her regalia. We have to remember that it is absolutely possible for us to find ways to comfort ourselves from loss. No matter how the loss has taken place there is always room for us to grasp our memories of them but still be able to function through our daily lives. That is why i chose the theme family means everything, because they really do. No matter how they do, but they have impact on our lives that no one else has. In every way our family lives whether its long or a lot shorter than we expected or maybe they haven’t passed at all. We know that they are always there to watch over and to make sure we succeed. We always have them as a guardian angel.