Life Afterward (Inspired by The Book Thief)

The Grief and Growing Up of Liesel Meminger

Liesel Meminger would have suffered from severe grief after the main events of The Book Thief. Throughout the novel, she saw her little brother die, was abandoned to foster care by her true mother, never knew her true father, and lost her foster parents and best friend in a bombing. She even saw the look of death on her foster parents' and her best friend's faces. The combination of all these events put together would have left her broken, and it would have taken her a while to recuperate and begin living her own life again. So, I chose to explore each stage of grief as Liesel would have grown up and went through each stage.

I used a unique perspective to narrate the story of after the bombing. I wrote from Life's perspective, much like Markus Zusak wrote from Death's perspective, as they watched Liesel try to reclaim her own life and energy back after a childhood of heartache and tragedy. I also used the idea of interesting titles from Markus Zusak's The Book Thief to keep about the same feel to the story.

Childhood grief can be "identified [by] a number of tasks as significant in the reconciliation process, including accepting the reality of the loss; fully experiencing the emotional distress of the loss; adjusting to one's environment and sense of self without the loved one; finding meaning in the loved one's death; and becoming engaged with other adults who can provide ongoing comfort, security, and nurturance" (Mannarino and Cohen 24). Liesel encounters each of these steps at least once within my story. She understands her loved ones are gone in her anger. She has a breakdown while finally understanding her loved ones' deaths. She adapts to her new household and lifestyle with the Hermann's. She accepts Thomas, her husband, into her life and falls in love with him. In the end of her bargaining, she understands her lost loved ones would have wanted her to continue living and would have wanted to give her the chance to live if it had been them to live. She decides to continue living and spread their stories. The Hermann's became her new foster parents after the bombing, and in my story, it took a while for her to warm up to them. In the end, though, she did accept them into her life and thanked them for all they had done for her after she had lost everyone else.