With all that has been happening to me and my family, the last line of Memories of a Catholic Girlhood stuck out to me.
"At that moment, the fact that my grandmother was senile became real to me."
We discussed in class how that was a fitting ending and there was no use for an italics portion after it with Mary McCarthy explaining it further. It is such a powerful last line and I think that most of us know exactly what she meant in that last line. I have had a few moments in my life where something finally became "real" to me, and one of those moments happened during the time when I was unable to be in class.
My grandfather was an amazing man and represented my idea of strength. He had a very sudden and severe fight with cancer, and I went and saw him when he was at his worst. It was then, seeing him in bed and his struggles to just speak and move, that his illness became real to me. It's an upsetting thing to see a family member completely altered by any disease, and Mary McCarthy hit the nail on the head for me. Throughout the whole book, I found things I could relate to or instances where I could almost get what she was going through without living the experience myself. However, it was that last line that really grabbed my attention, and I was almost sorry that it was the end of the book because then there was nothing more for me to follow.
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Margaret, I know this is going to sound strange, but since I knew what you were going through with your grandfather when we were reading this portion of the book, I was thinking of you. When Mary McCarthy was using "I," I was thinking of "Margaret McCarthy" as that "I." I was thinking of you and your situation throughout the end of the book, and I know that seeing your grandfather at his worst, those images, will certainly stay with you forever. However, I believe that he was a great man, and I think he will live on through the happiest and most respected of memories! :)
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