Butterflies (Allegory)
Butterflies are a symbol of a short, but beautiful life. Alice was always fascinated with them. Once, when she was a little girl of six or seven years old, she started crying over their sad fate. Her mother comforted her, saying that “just because their lives were short didn’t mean they were tragic”. Of course, “Alice liked remembering that”, for her own life reminded of a life of a butterfly. Alice had only 50 years of a full and active life and even less years of a happy life, but still her life could be considered beautiful.
BlackBerry (Symbol)
Being always in a rush, Alice couldn’t even imagine her life without her BlackBerry. It was a symbol of a non-stop life, to-do lists and constant movement. When she put her BlackBerry into a freezer and it stopped working, she was rather distressed. She thought that “the death of her organizer symbolized the death of her position at Harvard”.
Alzheimer’s disease (Motif)
Alzheimer’s came into Alice life without any warning; she didn’t know that her own genes could play such a cruel trick on her. It didn’t come by itself, since it also brought humiliation, distress and fear. Being a strong personality, Alice put up a good fight. She tried to memorize as many words from her dictionary as possible, she read Moby-Dick (even if reading spotted being as pleasurable as it used to be), and she worked-out. She organized “an early-stage dementia support group”, which proved to be really useful for other people with the same problem. In spite of the fact that Alzheimer’s took away a lot from her, it also taught her children to value their lives and time.
