Sal shows signs of coming to terms with death when she questions 'how could such a thing be normal and terrible both at the same time?' (p. Winterbottom did not actually like all this baking and cleaning and laundry and shopping, and I’m not quite sure why I had that feeling because if you just listened to the words she said, it sounded as if she was Mrs. Winterbottom baked and cleaned and did laundry and grocery shopping. I mean underneath, where I am Chanhassen' (p.143).Īt another point, Sal notices Mrs. 'No, I mean before I was a wife and mother. 'I could tell you that, Sugar,' my father said.

For example, when Chanhassen wants to leave to visit a cousin in Idaho, she tries to explain: There is a recurrent theme in the novel around the identity of mothers, who may, in caring so much for the needs of others, lose sight of their true selves. I didn't want to wake up in the morning, and I was afraid to go to sleep at night.' (p. 'I don't feel anything at all.' But I did feel terrible. When my father would say, 'You must feel terrible,' I denied it. 'Whenever anyone tried to console me about my mother, I had nearly chomped their heads off. Reflecting on her grief towards the end of the book, Sal acknowledges that Later, Sal explains 'When my father said that my mother was not coming back, I refused to believe it' (p. When Sal's father wants to talk to her about her mother's absence, Sal tells him 'I don't want to hear it,' admitting to herself that she was 'feeling so completely ornery' (p. Cadaver's husband had also been killed in a car accident. A mysterious character in the novel is actually named Mrs. Reference is made to Sal's sister, who was stillborn, and the deaths of Sal's two uncles at some point in the past. Loss is a theme that runs throughout Walk Two Moons. Textual Illustrations of Themes Death, Grief, and Denial

Gramps walk two moons