David Small’s memoir “Stitches”
hit home with me a lot more than I expected it to and I found myself connected to
David’s portrayal of himself. David expressed throughout the memoir that he was
a child with a high level of imagination, to which I have always found myself
to have, like when he imagined bottled fetuses to up and jump out of their jars
and run off. In car rides, I used to imagine there was some acrobatic man
jumping from road sign to road sign. When talking about how he depicted his
father and colleagues, he imagined that: “They were soldiers of science, and
their weapon was the x-ray. X-rays could see through clothes, skin, even metal.
They were miraculous wonder rays that could cure anything” (Page 26). The
imagination of a child could only believe that x-rays were a miraculous cure-all
to illnesses and to pretend that they were weapons in the fight for good is to
imagine them almost as superheroes.
His
parents were often depicted in a negative connotation throughout the memoir, like
when he describes his mother’s “language”. Her passive aggressive demeanor and the
general way that she conducted herself was at times near reminiscent of my own
parent’s behaviour. The slamming of kitchen cabinets and sitting angrily at the
dinner table is a feeling I know all too well. Examining her behaviour, David
wrote: “Her furious withdrawals could last for days, even weeks at a time
because she never spoke her mind, we never knew what this was all about” (Page
15). It’s very troublesome being in those shoes as a child trying to understand
why your parents are upset with you. You try to systematically come up with
reasons as to what you could have done to have caused this behaviour but being
older now, you see that it’s less about them being mad at you personally and
more about something else that is eating away at them causing them to lash out
or be uncharacteristically quiet.
Another
connection that I found myself to have with this memoir was that my
relationship with my brothers is close, if not exact, to the relationship of David
and his brother. When his parents were gone, his brother beckoned to him: “Scream
and cry all you want, little baby. Mama’s not here. She went to play golf. I’m
in charge for the next four hours!” (Page 50). If I had a nickel for every time
I heard this from my brothers when I was younger, I would be filthy rich. The
corruption that quickly emanates through older brothers who believe they have
been bestowed with this grand power when their parents are gone is something
younger siblings know all too well.
Overall,
I would say that the dysfunction portrayed in this memoir is a very true and
honest representation of most families. David Small’s memoir really brings to
light what most have probably tried to suppress. Reading this graphic novel
helps to face those buried anxieties and elevate them by putting them out in
the open.
