Themes

Romance
Throughout this memoir you can see aspects of romance: between Rob and Mariam and between Sarah and Domino. Because this memoir focuses mainly on Mariam, you see more of the romance between Rob and Mariam. In part one of the memoir, “Language”, you start to see the romance of Mariam and Rob developing. They met at Harvard in their final year, both “well-behaved and naïve”. After only a few months of dating Rob proposed to Mariam, they had a small wedding and then had Sarah and Hannah. In this memoir you can see how deeply in love they are with each other, despite Mariam’s illness Rob never gave up on her and took good care of her until the day she died. The love between Sarah and Domino is also found throughout the memoir, they traveled to Mexico together, and Domino stayed with Sarah and even helped their family with taking care of Mariam.

LGBT Awareness


LGBT awareness is a minor, yet impacting theme in this memoir. Sarah, the author to this memoir and Mariam’s daughter, is gay and expressed her love for Domino throughout her story. In “Long Distance” we see Sarah get involved with political awareness at her university, specifically to LGBT awareness. She even participated in a public demonstration against the police violence against LGBT individuals. From a relatively young age Sarah knew she was a lesbian and her family was very supportive of her in this. They had no problem with Sarah and her girlfriend Domino, they even stayed with the family in Mexico and when Mariam was still living at home Domino helped her just as all the family members did. This is an important theme as public awareness for acceptance and equality of LGBT people is a rising topic in the modern world, more often there is a lot of negativity against LGBT people so by Sarah publicly exposing her relationship is a big step towards the goal of acceptance and equality, when more people are aware and get insight into the lives of people different than ourselves we can grow to be more accepting of those different than us.

Family Love


Arguably the most important theme, family love is the main focus of this memoir. From the very beginning you see the love between sisters Deborah, Susannah, and Mariam. The sisters were all there for each other through the death of their parents Beatrice and Joe, and though they all lived great distances apart they still stayed in close contact and continually supported each other. The love between Mariam, Rob, Sarah, and Hannah and how strong it is, is very eminent and shown continually in this memoir. Throughout Mariam’s time with illness her family was still supportive and caring, without this care it’s possible Mariam would not have lived as long as she did. You can see evidence of this family love such as when Mariam and Rob decided to live in Mexico for some time, though a bit hesitant to this idea sisters Hannah and Sarah were still supportive of their parents even if it meant living countries apart. Throughout Mariam’s illness her whole family helped to care for her and each went through personal struggles in doing so, ultimately sacrificing personal time and adding extra stress to their lives; though for family love can conquer all.

A very strong theme, perseverance, is seen throughout this memoir. Alzheimer’s is a very serious debilitating disease; it takes a healthy normal person and turns them into someone who can’t remember basic words yet alone the person’s own loved ones. To see this happen to a family member is truly horrifying, and to continue living a (relatively) normal life is truly inspiring. Mariam’s family persevered though Mariam’s illness and despite their shortcomings still tried to live a normal life, and were able to give Mariam the love and care she required. Without the strength to persevere through this difficult time they may not have been able to care for Mariam as well as they had, nor may she had she lived as long as she did. It took great strength to be able to stay strong and carry on through such a traumatic situation.