“The Glass Castle In the Sky”
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
“I wanted to let the world know that no one had a perfect life, that even the people who seemed to have it all had their secrets” -Jennette Walls.
When Jeannette Walls was growing up, her father made a promise to build a Glass Castle: “It would have a glass ceiling and thick glass walls and even a glass staircase. The Glass Castle would have solar cells on the top that would catch the sun’s rays and convert them into electricity for heating and cooling and running all the appliances. It would even have its own water-purification system.”
Jeannette’s father is the type of dad who can’t be relied on to hold a job, pay the bills on time, or be sober for more than a few days. But he’s also the kind of dad who, because he couldn’t afford to give his kids Christmas presents, gave them the stars in the sky to choose from. But Jeannette and her siblings need more than that. They need a roof that doesn’t leak over their heads. They need a warm house with insulation, with floors that don’t sink down from termites. They need parents who can hold down jobs, or be able to save enough money so all of them can eat, and have clothes on their backs that aren’t missing buttons or aren’t frayed from too many washings.
With parents who could not change their ways for their kids, it’s amazing what Jeannette and her siblings have been able achieve on their own.
Jeannette admits that, despite all of his shortcomings as a parent, no one has ever loved her like her dad, and perhaps no one ever will. That day, when her dad had asked her to pick a star, she chose Venus, not knowing at first that it is a planet, not a star. And there would be moments when she would glance up at the sky and see her own planet blinking at her. I imagine that, just like Venus that hangs up in the sky and watches over her, when Jeannette looks up at the sky, maybe she can also see the Glass Castle that her dad dreamed of building could also be found somewhere among the stars, where he can watch over the rest of his family.
<Woks Cited>
Walls, Jeannette. The glass castle: a memoir. Scribner, 2006. E-Book Edition. https://www.axisnow.com/#q?epub=https%3A%2F%2Fnode.axisnow.com%2Fcontent%2Fstream%2F9781416550600&
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