What TKAM Means to Me

                      
                            

               "To Kill a Mockingbird"'s most primary themes are those of growing up. Already a guantlet of self flagellation and insecurity, Scout's transition to maturity is ridden with prejudice and examples of human atrocity and injustice. I think most of us can relate on some level to this kind of difficulty. We have all, in some way, experienced the moment when all innocence is gone. For me, this occurred relatively early.
             From a young age I have had an intense affair with the environment. Rain or shine, the world has always been a beautiful place to me. My collective experiences with my planet are small and insignificant compared to those who have had a real impact on its preservation. However, when I was first introduced to the negative influence of human establishment, it became apparent to me the inherent dangers of our society's niavety and love affair with industrialized technology. When you are very small, the world seems much bigger, so as a child I was never truly aware of the damage our impact has had. At nine, the world came crashing down upon me when this transition occured. Whether it was in mind, body, or spirt, I will never know, but this new awareness threw me into depressions. My inability to save the world was devastating. There were just too many people who didn't care, and each of them was launching a personal attack on a branch of myself. Their inability to connect themselves to the world around them baffled me. I had to realize that an individual is powerless against the storm, and only a worldfull will ever make a difference. I learned that contributing to the solution begins in your own life, and that the most we can do as people is educate and reinvent ourselves. Still, this transition has scarred me. I don't have as much faith in people as I used to, and I am deeply cynical about the identity of environmentalism being changed in the future.
               Another major transitional phase in my life was when my much loved Aunt Kathleen was killed in a freak accident. While her beliefs were not my own, I was bound to respect her dedication to them. A truck driver for over twenty years, her life had never seemed more bright. The road is a dangerous place for a woman to be, but she had her husband, Peter, with her. In a truck filled with apples, they drove away. Preliminary discussions identified this trip to be one of their last. They were excited to be over with this chapter of their lives, and ready to give it one more college try in the life of a sedentary couple. At the beginning of their trip, their truck ran into mechanical problems, and so they were forced to pull over and seek assistance. With their truck fixed, they continued on the road that lead to nowhere. Then, like some strange brush with chance, their brakes failed on a bridge. With no brake tracks to spell of their car swerved through several lanes, finally careening off the side into the cold water below. We were told she felt no pain, but Peter and his seat were not found for about a week. This tragedy crushed our family. We will remember her as a beautiful, vulnerable and insatiable person with a tremendous appetite for life. We will remember her as a melodious song of all things fragile in this world. We will remember how she taught our family to appreciate the moment, because the moment is bound to end in one way or another.
            These are only some of my transitional moments, but they taught me tremendous life lessons. Childhood is about innocence, and maturing is about evading bitterness. Some of us make it, and some of us don't. But it is the rare moments of intense beauty that see us through. The world and my Aunt are things of intense beauty, and they guided me though the arduous process of germination into adulthood. These themes will continue throughout my life, just as themes of continual personal growth will follow Jem and Scout.