What are Stitches?

I really enjoyed reading the book, Stitches: A Memoir. I can honestly say that I have never been the one for graphic novels, but this one particular book caught my eye. I loved all of the techniques David Small had throughout the text, but one that stood out to me the most is the title and how it incorporates with the rest of the book.

Stitches. What exactly is a stitch? A stitch is where it mends, or joins (something) with like a lacey feel. It heals a womb, closes it together, patches it up, and helps cure. He uses the word stitches for when he had cancer removed from the side of his neck. At first, he thinks it is just a growing, from which Mrs. Dillon notices at one of Betty's parties, but once the surgeries take place, he takes a look in the mirror and doesn't believe what he sees. David traces his fingers back and forth on top of the stitches. 

 

Throughout the book, David is faced with hard struggles every day while being forced to surrender to each dilemma.

David lives in a family where his mother doesn't show him love or any nurturing as a mother should, he finds out his father gave him cancer by radiation from x-Rays, he had to find out this issue by finding a letter his mother wrote which showed no concern, but seemed to be cold to the core, and later he witnesses his mother in bed with Mrs. Dillon.

After the surgeries he had been in to remove his cancer, David loses his voice. So when he finds out he has cancer, David walks into where his mother was sitting and glares at her while touching the stitches. This was Betty's language to him and now he was giving her a taste of her own medicine.

Betty, his mother, sends David to a therapist, where he receives more care than his mother has ever given him. David is told that his artwork is fantastic, and that he is smart.

David's therapist also mentions to him that his mother doesn't love him. Think about this for a moment. His mother doesn't love him...

How would that feel if someone told you your own mother did not even love you?

That is a hard factor to realize and a depressing matter, but David comes to the realization that it is the truth. Can you imagine?

All of these things David is stuck with, he is desperate need of repairing his life. He needs help and to be healed; he needs stitches. In a sense, David's life is in deep need of re-stitching it back together, back as one. This symbolizes how David's traumatizing childhood reflects his crucial personality and that he is actually covered in stitches.

Not only is David in need of stitches, but the rest of his family is in need of stitches as well. Betty is fighting the fact that she is a lesbian and seems to be always angry because she can't love what she really wants to. David's father knows, but keeps his distance with Betty and eventually remarries once Betty passes away. When David is 16 years old, he moves out of his house. This is quite a big step for a sixteen year old, but it was a step that probably should have been taken. This was the start of his "stitches", his healing. He was able to get out and kind of start over with his new life and not be surrounded by his messed up family who didn't love him.

There is major emphasis of the title Stitches: A Memoir because not only the actual stitches David receives upon his neck, but it symbolizes the fact his entire life needs stitches, needs to be put back together again. I think each person at one point in their lives needs stitches. When I say stitches? I mean when life feels like it's falling apart, sometimes we need help to recover.