Claire Harmeyer

Dear Jodi Picoult,

"Don't do it." Those three words can mean so many things — don't steal money from your brother's piggy-bank, don’t dump your milk down the drain when your mom isn't looking. These are classic examples of what "Don't do it." means for a 13-year-old girl like me. But for Anna, they meant so much more. They meant she had to give up her sister, her best friend. Those three words changed Anna's life forever.

When I was looking for a book to read one day my mother told me I should read My Sister's Keeper. I remember my mom describing the novel. I struggled to listen to her tell me about it, but I could only hear the big words - transplant, leukemia, white blood cells, bla, bla, bla. I just nodded and said, "Yeah that sounds good." Not until I actually read the book did I fully appreciate the lesson inside its pages. The lesson that told me that I should appreciate the people I love now and let them know that I love them by doing what they ask of me before they can't ask me at all.

My sister and I are pretty close. We watch movies together, tell each other secrets, and laugh about things that most people would think are stupid but to us are hilarious. Of course we fight like any other pair of siblings, but all in all, we are friends. So when I read about what Anna did for her sister, I was anxious to start reading.

At first I thought, "How could anyone do something like that for someone? Go through treatment after treatment; have the majority of their days be spent at the hospital?" So even though I knew it, I was being selfish. But as I read through every page, every chapter, every character's different perspective, I realized that if I was in Anna's situation, the love I have for my sister would trump any selfish thoughts I had for myself. That love would make me do anything for my sister just like it did for Anna.

So thank you, Jodi Picoult, for giving me the gift of realizing the world doesn't revolve around me. The gift of realizing that everything we do for someone else, we do because we love them. I now look at life in a new way - now when my sister asks me to do something, instead of groaning and rolling my eyes I just do whatever I have been asked because I know one day she won't be here to tell me to do anything at all.

Sincerely,
Claire Harmeyer