Thursday Quotes: Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
This is the last entry:
March 20:
“My birthday.
I’m 17 and I’m alive and we have food…
Because it was my birthday, Mom let me decide what we were going to have. I found a box of macaroni and cheese. It was as close to pizza as we could get… .
The electricity comes and goes, so we don’t know when we’ll be able to depend on it. We have firewood for a while yet, and Matt is getting stronger (he walked up 10 stairs today and only Mom’s insistence kept him from climbing them all). There’s plenty of snow outside, so we’re okay for water…
But today isn’t a day to worry about the future. Whatever will happen will happen. Today is a day to celebrate. Tomorrow there will be more daylight than night. Tomorrow I’ll wake up and find my mother and my brothers by my side. All still alive. All still loving me.
A while ago Jonny asked me why I was still keeping a journal, who I was writing it for. I’ve asked myself that a lot, especially in the really bad times.
Sometimes I’ve thought I’m keeping it for people 200 years from now, so they can see what our lives were like.
Sometimes I’ve thought I’m keeping it for that day when people no longer exist but butterflies can read.
But today, when I’m 17 and warm and well fed, I’m keeping this journal for myself so I can always remember life as we knew it, life as we know it, for a time when I am no longer in the sunroom.”
It gives me chills just reading that again. Such a great book!
