Meant to Be (195-239)

Summary
The last section of this book was a victorious one. Walter finally met his half brother, Herbert Dorfman, from his real father. Herbert was shocked when he found out that he had a brother and they met immediately for dinner to discuss the situation. Walter answered all the questions Herbert threw at him and exchange stories from their unfortunate childhood to each other. Walter quickly realized that Herbert's life was parallel to his. They both pursued the same career, sometimes even working side by side without even knowing. Walter's mom was ecstatic when she learned that Walter had found his brother and agreed on planning a dinner where the two families will unite. They did just that and the Dorfmans easily became close to the Andersons. Walter's mother continued to call Herbert after the dinner reminding him that his father Albert would have been very proud that the two brothers met and Walter reunited with Herbert every week for dinner to share and talk for all the years they hadn't. Walter finally knows what it meant to be Jewish and told Herbert that he felt Jewish although he wasn't raise that way.
Unfortunately, the ending of this book was also sad. Walter's mom, at the age of 88, finally passed away. Walter cried like baby when her body surrendered on the life-support system. He cried and his children held him. He also cried at her funeral as his mind filled with memories of his beautiful mother. Eric, his son, gave a speech about his grandmother and ended with, "Imagine at eighty-eight, being able to say 'no regrets.' What a wonderful way to say goodbye. Goodbye, Grandma" (Anderson 239).

Quote
"I have often thought of how a mother has her children within her for nine months. Yes, they are hers alone for a while. Then, though, they are born, and their love is shared. Life is so wonderful. Death must be known by rich and poor alike. We shed a tear when someone we love dies, but the living go on. No regrets. God bless you all" (Anderson 238).

Reaction
Walter's mom wrote this note to her family before she died. I thought it was sad but also beautiful. She knew she was going to die, she was even counting her days, but she also knew she will die knowing everything will be well. She let Walter know several times that she had no regrets and on her note, she let her family and friends know that also. She saw life as a wonderful gift and emphasize the bond a mother has to her children. When she said that, she was mostly referring to her son and her deepest secret, Walter.

Meant to Be (142-194)

Summary
This part of the book was a little bit confusing because the author kept on skipping years of his life in every chapter. In the beginning of this section, he was 27 and just graduated Mercy College. By the end of this section, he was 57 with a grandchild. A lot of wonderful and unfortunate things happened to Walter during these pages. He lost his sister, Carol, a few months after he graduated Mercy College due to cancer. He wanted so bad to tell her their mother's secret before she died since they share all their secrets, but Walter hesitated and kept his mother's words. After her death, Walter was promoted editor of Parade, the largest circulation of any publication in America (back then). He met Elie Wiesel during that time as the head editor and they quickly became close friends. Elie was the author of Walter's favorite book Night and a survivor of the Holocaust. They had a deep conversation that night about the book and Elie's experience. Four years after they met, Elie Wiesel received the Nobel Piece Prize and Walter received an invitation to visit the Soviet Union. He went with his wife and it changed his life forever. He learned and stood on the very ground that 33,771 Jews were executed during the Holocaust. As he learned more and more about the Holocaust, he tied it back to his real Jewish father and himself. He learned what soul was, and at the end of his two-week voyage, he gave a 40 minute speech to the Soviet Union, thanking them for the visit and telling them what he learned through his trip.
The author skipped the next 13 years of his life and jumped into the year 2000. That year, his older brother, Bill, died. His mother, 87 at the time, cried and said, "Walter, there's nothing harder than to bury your own child. It's not natural. It's all wrong. I've faced it with Carol and now with Billy.... Thank God you're here." (Anderson 189). Now that his siblings were all gone, Walter and his mother agreed that they should let his children Eric and Melinda, know his mother's secret. So he told them and they were all understandable of the situation. However, Eric was curious and decided to search for Albert Dorfman (Walter's real father) and Herbert Dorfman (Walter's brother). Walter helped him on his search and found out that his real father had died just one year before his fake father died. However, Hebert was still alive and he is set out to look for him with his son Eric. This was the end of page 194.

Quote
"I agonized silently -irrationally- that somehow, inexplicably, I'd lose everything that I'd gained. I was thirty years old, and I was still angry." (Anderson 154)

Reaction
I thought this was a good quote because it showed how Walter doubted himself and found himself still angry. Even after he graduated College and is a journalist, like he wanted to be, he is still not happy. This shows how you can never let go of your past. He was always angry as a child because of his father's abuse. He joined the Navy because of that, but he just got angrier. When he came back to the civilized world, he was still angry because people mocked and frustrated him. And now, after having a wife, two wonderful children, and a college GED (graduated valedictorian and a gold medal for psychology), he still finds himself angry. I am thinking, is he angry because he was grown angry or because he is missing something in his life?

Meant to Be (98-141)

Summary
During the third section of this book, Walter's life took a major turning point. After finding out about his real father and the full story of his mother's secret affair, he had a new outlook on life and more specifically, on his own life. After deep reasoning, he decided to stay in the civilized world and out of the Marines. However, he had many troubles fitting in again. He no longer had friends he could hang out with because they were all gone. He realized he needed a job right away and applied to numerous places. He was not accepted almost everywhere because he was a Vietnam veteran. The citizens, then, were angry at the war US was having with Vietnam and said hostile remarks toward veterans like Walter that hurt and frustrated him. At times, he lost his temper and threatened or harassed the civilians. When he finally received a job at Nevis Laboratories, a division of Columbia University, he quit because he was discriminated and menaced by his coworkers. That evening, he promised himself four things: to find another job while finding out how to become a writer, to keep his mouth shut on his mother's secret (which she asked him to do), to avoid serious relationships with women until he gets his mind straight, and, lastly, to meet more Jewish people so he could understand where he came from.
Fortunately, three days later, he received a job by a man who was Jewish. So, he had killed two birds with one stone and fulfilled two promises at once. Eventually, he broke his third promise when he got engaged to his soon to be wife, Loretta, who he found attractive, kind, and empathic. Before they got married, Walter told Loretta about his mother's secret (with his mother's permission) and she did not care at all that he was Jewish. She accepted him either way and promised to keep the secret between themselves and Walter's mom. Later on, Walter applied and received a job at the town newspaper Reporter Dispatch as a journalist.
The author then skipped the next four years of his life and jumped into when he was becoming 26. Married with a full time job as a well known journalist, Walter was expecting a baby in a few weeks. After an exceptional interview with admissions at Mercy College, Walter was awarded full scholarship (without even applying for it) to be a full time student there. He happily accepted this opportunity and, again, would be working full-time and attending college full-time. At the ending of this section, on Sept 17, 1970, Walter received his first child, Eric, into the world. He promised to try to make his son's childhood very different from his'.

Quote
"I reached up and squeezed his right hand, then quickly twisted the hand back into his wrist... "That hurts, doesn't it? Words hurt too"" (Anderson 121).

Reaction
I thought that this quote was really powerful and true. After coming back into the civilized world, Walter was treated badly by his new coworkers and one day after being yelled at by one for entertainment, he decided to teach him a hard lesson. He clinched his hands and asked him if that hurt. The man quickly said yes and to please let him go. Well, words hurt too, he replied before letting go. He taught him a good lesson that day and all the other workers were there to witness this truth. I was quite surprised at his reaction, though. He did that out of nowhere and with seriousness. When he said those true words, I saw him as a helpless little kid who finally got to say what he was so eager to say for so long. He had, once and for all, released his anger out to the world and demand the respect he deserved. I though that was a sign that he is becoming a man.

Meant to Be (49-97)

Summary
The second section of this memoir was quite intense. In the beginning, Walter recalls an event in his childhood when he almost stabbed an outsider from Bronx for survival when a nearby gang came to the rescue and demanded the Bronx boys to leave immediately.
Most of the second section of this novel was on Walter's life in the Marine Corps. A year+ after being in this organization, he was promoted to be a lance corporal. He had not expected at all from his interview to be promoted, but he did. He also attended school while in the Marines and ended up top of the class with a high school GED and one-year college GED (being that he started off with the least educated of the whole class). With this achievement, he told him "I have proved myself." He moved on to Vietnam with his team (this was taken place during the Vietnam War in 1965), and while over there, he wrote an article about Vietnam after seeing a 10yr old dead Vietnam boy soldier at his feet. His article was published in his hometown newspaper Daily Argus. Few months later, while thinking of getting out the Marines, he was promoted Sergeant. He hesitated but accepted it anyway. After his promotion, he was given a 15day leave so he traveled back home. There, he discovered another side of his father. Instead of a usual beating, Walter received a sad history from his father of his unfortunate and abusive childhood. Before Walter left back to the Marine, his father cried and told him he was proud of him. He also said "I love you", which were the last words he heard from his father.
Walter then returned back into the scene in the living room with his mother when he questioned her "Was the man we just buried my father?" That evening, Walter finally got the truth on his real Jewish father named Albert Dorfman. He listened & nodded as his mother told the story of her secret affair but later on was startled with the numerous questions he challenged himself of who he really was. On Chap. 15 (pg93-97), Walter retold his mother's story in third person narrative. Page 97 ends with the flashback on the night Walter was conceived.

Quote
"The street-lamps looked like lonely little islands on the otherwise dark blocks, the glow of each forming a ring of dull yellow light on the pavement below." (Anderson 95)

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I love this quote. It contains simile: the comparison of street-lamps with islands using like. Not only that, but it sounds great when you say it and it is strong. Just imagine the second part of this sentence. The streetlight's glow forming a ring of dull yellow light on the pavement. It is quite easy to visualize, I believe, and the word choice was really well put together. When I read this I automatically thought of the beginning scene of Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix where Harry is in a empty, dark and cold park. There were few lonely street-lamps on the sidewalks that was the only sources of light there. Soon the dementors came and everything went out. The lonely street-lamps in the movie looked like lonely little islands too.

Meant to Be (1-48)

Summary

The autobiography, Meant to Be by Walter Anderson, opens with a funeral. Walter is on an emergency leave from the Marines so that he can attend his father's funeral. After the funeral, Walter heads back back to his mother's apartment and listens to her while she share memories of her husband. Out of nowhere, Walter questions his mother. "Mom, the man we just buried.... was he my father?".
Without any further dialogue, the author goes on and fills the reader in with the history of his father, William Henry Anderson, and himself during his childhood years. He recalls the beatings he received every day from his alcoholic father and the desperate need to get out of the house. Mr, Anderson also severely beaten Walter every time he encounters him reading a book. Living in a poor neighborhood and attending a private school on the "other side of town", Walter also faces troubles with fitting in with anyone who wasn't from the streets. He later decides to go back to a public high school where he can be with his friends. Not a few years later he drops out of school and decides to join the Marines, an advice his older brother Bill give him. Bill knew about him and their father's abuse and knew the only way to escape it is to get away from home. Page 48 ends with Walter decision to apply for the Marine.

Quote
"I remember how the taste of metal appeared in my mouth when he began to beat me, and I also remember that, for the first time, I did not feel the pain. I knew not to cry: Tears would only provoke more punishments. But that wasn't it. I did not seem to hurt. Nor was there a need for me to cry. It was as if I were an observer, disembodied, watching as my father punched and shouted." (Anderson 20)

Reaction
I thought this quote was powerful. His father is beating him severely and he has no reaction to it. As I read, this stood out to me. It is as if he no longer cares about being mistreated and abused. He knew that it would always be this way and that crying would make it worst and would show his father that he feels the pain.
When he says he could taste the metal in his mouth, I tried to think of what his father could have been beating him with. With the buckle on the belt or maybe just a piece of metal? It was a really horrible thing to visual in my head. I wonder what it must have been like growing in a poor neighborhood and being abused by his father on top of that. I wonder why his father beat him at all, period.