TOW #24 - Article: "Now We are Five" by David Sedaris (New York Times)

Reading Goal: Read a text outside of current news and politics that is still challenging and thought provoking. 

David Sedaris’s sister, Tiffany, committed suicide when she was 49 years old.  While this was not the first time Sedaris had to deal with death, Sedaris chose to write about his sister because it was the first time he realized his group of six siblings was no longer.  No matter how distant in geography or in their relationship he had become with his siblings, to him they were always the group of six, and with the death of his sister, he realized he had lost the identity he had worn for most of his life.  The use of an anecdote as the formation of the essay helps to keep the reader engaged along the path of Sedaris's coping.  Sedaris retells the events that went from first learning of his sister's death to eventually accepting it, which acts as the perfect guide for displaying and transitioning from each stage. By using a personal anecdote he is able to show how these stages play a role and exemplify how effective they are in helping a person heal.

 Sedaris uses humor to explain a specific stage when he dealt with a loss. Sedaris describes his sister as she, “Laughed and rolled over onto her stomach.  He implies that although they all knew their sister had fallen out and distanced herself from the family past years before, the family spoke of their sister only in a humorous, uplifting way to remember the good times instead of the bad. Sedaris displays the five different stages of coping and shows that eventually was able to accept his sister’s death.  He states that this acceptance at the end of the essay when he talks with a rental agent and she remarks at the enormity of his family.  “’Then you’ve got your brother,’ she observed. ‘That makes five—wow! Now, that’s a big family.’ I looked at the sunbaked cars we would soon be climbing into, furnaces every one of them, and said, ‘Yes. It certainly is.’ David Sedaris uses personal anecdotes and humorous diction to show that although coping with a death can be hard for some, it is possible to find closure.