"On May 21, 2009, after leaving many messages, I called again. Her voice-mail box was full. So I dialed Sonny's number to say something I'd said to him many times over the years: 'Will you tell your sister to stop messing around and return my calls? I really need to talk to her. Our time is running out.' When he answered the phone I said, 'Hey Sonny, it's Rebecca,' and for a moment the line went silent.
'I've been trying to find your phone number,' he said, and my eyes filled with tears. I knew there was only one reason Sonny would need to call me (p. 307)."
I loved this passage because it shows the quiet sense of what had happened that spread through Skloot as she learned that Deborah had died, and how sad and devastated both Skloot and the family were—they realized how much Deborah had meant to them; for Skloot, it was the professional/personal love/hate relationship that they had developed, and for the family it was the fact that Deborah had kept them all together, more or less, and had been the mouthpiece for them to the public. I think the style shows the starkness of her feelings—there isn’t a word wasted, and there isn’t an extraneous piece of information—Skloot only tells what happened. It’s glaringly obvious what she was feeling as she had this conversation with Sonny. We’ve all had that moment of our hearts dropping down somewhere close to our knees as we hear something, and then there’s not the potential for going back and saying what we really felt. I felt that way with Grandpa Ted when he passed—I had told him I loved him, but there was so much more I wanted to ask him, to learn from him, and so much more fun I wanted to have with him, and when he died, it was all cut off cold turkey. No chance to get one last question or hug in edgewise. I felt like I was there. I could hear the silence around the room, and on the phone line, and I could feel the weight of it before Sonny got out that he was looking to get in touch with Skloot.
The questions that this passage raises to me are about how Skloot chose to write it—did she make conscious decisions to keep it stark and quiet? Or is this just her memory of the situation? Does it really describe what was going on around her? What if there was ambient noise that her mind blocked out, I wonder? And why did Sonny say he was looking for her number? I’m sure they all had it; I wonder if he was just trying to be polite. I wonder if he was ever going to tell her or find a way to tell her if she hadn’t called. I wonder how the rest of the family felt about Skloot going to the funeral, or about being close to them and their turf at all. How did Rebecca feel about the strained nature of her relationship with Deborah the whole time they knew each other? Deborah was always just this side of a total meltdown, and Rebecca often had to deal with her erratic behavior and even defend her own person. Did Skloot decide to forget the fact that Deborah had thrown her up against a wall and only remember the moments of closeness and clarity? I feel like there was a level of sweeping under the rug that Skloot did with those moments, and I don’t know if I would be able to do that. But nonetheless, she is genuinely saddened by Deborah’s death. Would they have continued their relationship once the book was published if Deborah had lived longer, then?
"The younger Deborah said she was glad that when she died, she wouldn't have to tell her mother the story of everything that happened with the cells and the family, because Henrietta already knew. 'She's been watching us and seeing all that's going on down here,' Deborah said. 'She's waiting patiently for us. There won't be any words, just a lot of hugging and crying. I really believe she's up in heaven, and she's doin okay, because she did enough suffering for everyone down here. On the other side, they say there's no pain or suffering....I want to be there with my mother.'
Sitting between me and Davon on the bed, Deborah nodded over at her younger self on the screen and said, 'Heaven looks just like Clover, Virginia. My mother and I always loved it down there more than anywhere else in the world.'
She stroked Davon's hair. 'I don't know how I'm going to go,' she said. 'I just hope it's nice and calm. But I tell you one thing, I don't want to be immortal if it mean living forever, cause then everybody else just die and get old in front of you while you stay the same, and that's just sad.' Then she smiled. 'But maybe I'll come back as some HeLa cells like my mother, that way we can do good together out here in the world.' She paused and nodded again. 'I think I'd like that (p. 309, 310).'"
I think moments like this, with short sentences and plain language, really portray Deborah’s sense of justice and fairness and belonging to the world best. I think Deborah was a plainspoken woman who by some chance on top of a lot of circumstance had not been educated as well as other people might have been, and didn’t understand what her mother’s cells were doing for the world, or even what they were, and she felt as though those cells were still a part of her mother’s consciousness. She knew her mother was a giving, sweet, and caring person who would have wanted to be useful to the world, so she was able to reconcile the way her mother’s cells had been used to benefit medicine and science with her mother’s character, but she didn’t understand that her mother hadn’t been able to feel the pain of being injected with pathogens, or being manipulated or being shot into space. So, she felt that her mother had sacrificed herself even more than she really had, and I think it speaks to Deborah’s sense of connectedness to people that she was ok with that, and even wanted to come back as some HeLa cells after she died, to give herself for the benefit of other people as well. I think, from Deborah’s point of view, that Henrietta was still a part of her cells in culture, and that her intent and her consciousness as a part of those cells was what was her contribution. And I think Deborah wanted to be a part of it. I also see from the way Skloot formed this passage that there were moments of calm for Deborah, where she had clarity and introspection, and I think this passage leaves us with that Deborah, the Deborah she might have been more of the time if her anxiety and her other physical conditions had been cared for better—all of which is tied back into how the family should be recognized for Henrietta’s famous cell line as well. I like this Deborah. I like her guilelessness. I like how her intent toward humanity is so selfless. I think this was the perfect scene to end with, in the book.
Questions that this passage raised for me include mostly how this would have been different if the family had been better educated, and had understood how cells work and how research is done with them better. I thought this throughout the entire book, and I think this now: the fact that the Lackses were so upset by all this was a direct function of how little they knew about science. If they had been given a proper education in the liberal arts and sciences as they were growing up, their suspicion and outright mistrust and hatred for the things they don’t understand would be prevented. I wonder, how could they even listen to people talking about HeLa cells and really get it if theyweren’t given the raw materials with which to understand? What can we do to make sure that there is an adequate length and depth of education for children from poor families who would most likely have to leave school unfairly early to begin to work to support their families? How can we change that? Skloot founded the Henrietta Lacks foundation, but what about people without famous relatives? What about their understanding of the world? What can we do to keep kids in school and learning until they at least complete high school level course work? It would give them a better chance to understand their world, a better chance at higher education and more satisfying work, it would give them a broader experience to inform their political opinions, and it would give them the opportunity to become inspired to make changes in their home environments that would benefit their communities. What if Deborah hadn’t been religious? Would HeLa have meant so much to her understanding of her mother, then? What if Henrietta had refused to give her cells for research, if the doctors at Hopkins had asked? What if the family had closed ranks against Skloot and not told her anything? I think that’s the biggest question. Where would the world be without this story told when there were still relatives who remembered Henrietta and while her children were all alive to have their say (except for Elsie, and what would have happened if Lurz hadn’t been there to speak for her?)? Would Henrietta have been lost entirely to historic mystery?
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