Letter to John Green

Dear John Green

Dear John Green,

    Your book taught me that life is a search for meaning.

    A few months ago, my best friend confided in me about her suicidal thoughts, and she begged me to keep it a secret. For weeks, I didn't tell, and the fear and guilt followed me in everything I did. I finally told, and I could never figure out for myself if I did the right thing. I lost my best friend, and for what? Maybe she wouldn't have done it. Maybe she just wanted attention. And maybe breaking her trust and destroying our friendship was simply what it took to get her the help she needed to keep her here on earth.

    I chose to read Looking for Alaska because of how much I loved your book The Fault in our Stars. When I started Looking for Alaska, I was immediately intrigued by the Before and After. It gave a perfect indication of suspense, but not too much to give away what we were waiting for in the After. Similar to Pudge, I'm quiet in school, keep to myself for the most part, and I put a safe distance between myself and others, including my family. I am still awaiting my Great Perhaps. When Alaska was first introduced, I thought this book would be just another cheesy romance novel; however, that all changed right before Alaska's death.

    Alaska had a difficult life, one full of pain, guilt, and betrayal, and Pudge and the Colonel knew that. But they had no way of knowing where Alaska was going on that last night. They will never know for sure what could have happened. Many times, I caught myself thinking about how they should stop trying to discover the answers to all their "what ifs." What if they had stopped her? What if they hadn't set off the fireworks? What if the accident wasn't an accident? And then I had the terrifying realization that I had been doing the same thing to myself for months. What if my best friend had no intention of hurting herself? What if I ruined our friendship for nothing? And I learned one of the most valuable lessons I have ever learned: There is no end to the rabbit hole of "what ifs." Just like Pudge and the Colonel, I can't keep beating myself up over it because no matter how important it seems to me, it is in the past now.

    "That which came together will fall apart imperceptibly slowly,"(219) just as Pudge wrote. No matter what I had done in the situation with my best friend, our friendship was bound to fall apart at some point, whether fast or imperceptibly slow. One day we would have decided that the benefits of having each other weren't worth the struggle of fighting to keep each other, and that would have been okay. When I told after she begged me not to, I knew it would destroy our friendship, but I did it anyway. In a way, I decided that the struggle of keeping her here was more important than the benefits of having her as a friend. As someone who cared about her almost as much as her own family, I miss her friendship deeply, but her life was the most important that day. We were bound to fall apart, because everything that comes together will fall apart. Thank you for allowing me to forgive myself for making us fall apart sooner than expected.

Not only did Looking for Alaska teach me about the seriousness of mental health issues among students and teens today, the importance of friendships and family, and the unexpectedness of life, it taught me about the importance of forgiveness and trusting that those close to you will forgive you. As Pudge said, "We had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth" (218). Pudge and the Colonel kept a secret from Takumi because they thought he would be mad at them for letting Alaska go, but Takumi forgave them. In fact, Takumi was keeping a secret from them too, but they were able to heal their relationships by forgiving. I recently read the book The Five People You Meet in Heaven, and I've noticed many connections in themes between it and Looking for Alaska. One of these is about the difficulty, power, and healing that can come from forgiveness. When Pudge and the Colonel drove past the place of Alaska's accident, they forgave each other for not stopping her. They hugged, they healed their relationship, and they were able to overcome some of the adversity they were faced with after Alaska's death.

Looking for Alaska was a powerful and emotional book, and it allowed me to realize a plethora of wrong that I was letting happen in my life. I allowed myself to believe we as people could be irreparably broken when we are truly invincible. You have left me with all these questions that just don't have answers: What happened to Alaska? How do the stories of these characters end? And what happens after they end? Something that really stuck out to me in Pudge's letter was, "There is a part of her greater than the sum of her knowable parts. And that has to go somewhere because it cannot be destroyed" (220). I love solving problems, but I can't solve this one: What happens to us when we die? Where does this unknown part of us go?

"But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail," (220) is another part of your book that I turn to quite often. Honestly, life terrifies me. Facing my Great Perhaps like Pudge did is intimidating. Even before I read your book, deep down inside of me was a fear of the future. But I know that it is beautiful in the future. No matter where the future is or what it holds, I have to hold on to what Pudge held onto After Alaska: It is beautiful over there, wherever there is.

Sincerely,

Hannah Herring