An older woman was scooping oatmeal. A man in a blue cap stepped forward. “Where’s Sarah?” he asked.
“She’s not here today,” the woman said. “Sarah puts in extra bananas.”
“OK. Here’s some extra bananas.” “I like that girl. She’s quiet, but I like her.”
“We haven’t heard from her in a couple of weeks.” “I hope she’s all right.”
“Me, too.” “I’ll be praying for her then.” Albom, 2013:203
Their words make Sarah surprise that these people miss her, that her absence is significant to these people whom she had thought would not miss her if she were
not around. Next, she moves to where her mother is. Lorraine is with Mark, Sarah’s uncle from North Carolina, in a parking lot of a car dealer-ship. As she watches
them, she learns that their purpose is to sell Lorraine’s car in which Sarah had committed suicide.
Lorraine kept her eyes locked on the car, until it disappeared around a corner. Then, she broke down, sobbing.
“I should have been there, Mark.” “It’s not your fault—“
“I’m her mother” “It’s not your fault.”
“Why would she do this? Why didn’t I know?” Albom, 2013:205
Sarah feels so sick to see her mother like this. She would not think that Lorraine would blame herself for Sarah’s death. Sarah would never calculate the
consequences of her action. Committing suicide is only a quick solution to escape from her own misery without considering the collateral damage it would cause to
everyone she knows. Having watched the consequences of her death, Sarah opens her eyes and
wakes up in a hospital. She was taken to the hospital after opening the garage and crawling out from the car by her neighbor. Being conscious, Sarah learns that time
is precious and not hers to take. Because it is precious, she should do her utmost to live her life. She should also cherish her life with people who cares and loves her
before she regrets it later just like Gonsalves said that “All humans seek happiness to the fullness of their capacity” 1986:219.
While Victor is waiting inside the freezing tube, he closes his eyes and braces himself for facing the cold of ice. Suddenly, a flash of light comes and takes his
mind into the freezing warehouse in a near future. There he sees Jed coming in followed by Grace. Victor is a little bit nervous but he knows that soon Grace would
learn his plan. While Victor thinks that Grace would be shocked and desperate, she hits and kicks the tube contained his body couple times. Then she goes to the exit
door without saying anything to her frozen husband. Truthfully, he knows what he have done is wrong.
In his race to cheat death, he’d trusted scientists more than his wife. He had denied her their final intimacy. He had not even left a body to bury. How
would she grieve him now? He doubted she would ever come to this place again Albom, 2013:212-213.
After that, the light comes again and wakes him up in a distant future. He looks surround him and learns that there are many massive high-rise buildings and that
the air is thicker, dirtier and cold. The face of the future people is somehow different from the present. Their heads seems larger and it is difficult to differentiate between
men and women. Victor is smiling because he thought he finally overcome his cancer. But suddenly his face changed seeing inside the cryonics facility. He
wonders why there are so many people and monitors there. Then he takes a good look at a monitor around the room. Finally, he is aware the people is watching
moments from his life through the monitors. He searches around the facility and
finds his body in a large glass tube in the corner of the area. He feels cold and sick to what he finds there.
There, inside the tube, was a pinkish, shriveled version of his body, his muscles atrophied, his skin blotched as if burned, his head wired in multiple
places, the wires running to numerous machines. His eyes were open and his lips were parted in a pained expression Albom, 2013:216.
Victor does not accept the fact that people from the future study his body like a guinea pig. But all he can only accept it because all the people he knew from the
present had gone. He has no lawyer to assure his revival. Furthermore, he has no bodyguard to protect his body. All of them are died leaving his body as a freak show
in a future facility. Knowing that he takes a wrong decision, Victor watches the monitor again. There he sees his last moment with Grace.
He watched that scene now, him in the bed, her in an evening gown, heading to the gala.
I’ll be as quick as I can. I’ll be …
What, sweetheart? Here. I’ll be here.
He saw her disappear down the hall, believing she would see him again. Could he really have been that cruel? He suddenly missed her in the most
powerful way. For the first time in his adult life, he wanted to go backward Albom, 2013:218.
Knowing the fact that his plan would fail, Victor feels pathetic. Not only the plan hurts Grace the most but also it ruins his life for seeking immortality.
Consequently, he opens his eyes and shouts the name of his wife to Roger. He decides to terminate the cryonics process and goes back to Grace. Victor has learned
that time is limited and should not be prolonged. It is limited in order for him to appreciate the time that he has. To appreciate it, he should spend her last moment
with Grace so he will have something to remember. By doing so, he will not have anything to regret because finally he can appreciate his time correctly.
2. Fame and wealth are not the most important things in life
Sarah Lemon is presumed as a geeky girl not without a reason. Everyone knows that she is not only smart but also diligent as she ranks third in the class. And
everyone also knows that she is fat and weird because she does not socialize with other students in the school much. That reason is enough to put her into a nerd group
in the school. Sarah believes that she is not pretty and popular since she has “the hazel eyes,
too far apart, the dry, wavy hair, the gap between her teeth” Albom, 2013:49. Thus, she knows that she could never be a part of popular group in which handsome
boys and beautiful girls gathered. However, deep in her heart, Sarah dreams to be acknowledged as a popular girl because she learns that “what mattered in high
school was popularity—based mostly on how you looked” Albom, 2013:49. The dream of becoming a part of popular group starts growing after Sarah
meets Ethan. Sarah’s self-esteem increases every time they meet in the shelter of homeless people. She is proud of herself that someone popular like Ethan would
say hi and come close to talk with her even just for a moment. Thus, Sarah starts to dress beautifully in front of the mirror before seeing Ethan.
Tonight she will see him. Tonight at eight-thirty. She recites it excitedly— Eight-thirty, eight-thirty—and she wonders what to wear. The black jeans?
The sleeveless top? No. She hates her arms. Not the sleeveless 2013:3.
As her love for Ethan growing bigger, she tries another thing that popular girls do most, wearing makeup. She does that just to make sure that Ethan would pay
attention to her as he cancelled their date before. Although she already made up her mind about wearing makeup, it feels awkward to her because it is not her habit.
Furthermore, she always interprets Lorraine’s thick makeup as “It’s like you’re screaming for attention” 2013:83. Despite her comment on Lorraine’s makeup,
she is desperate to draw Ethan’s attention by being a beautiful girl. This proven that she does not mind to change her habit and be a pretty girl for Ethan. In other words,
Sarah Lemon is ready to pursue fame by becoming a popular girl. But she justified her efforts because a boy like Ethan could have beautiful
girls anytime, girls with even more makeup and even lower-cut blouses. If she wanted him, she had to change some habits 2013:83.
At the end of the story, Sarah learns that fame is not the most important thing in life. She realizes that despite craving love from someone like Ethan, it is better
for her to depend on the love from Lorraine and homeless people in the shelter. Without a reason, the love she receive helps her to live her life and build a positive
life. Their love combined together with Victor’s aid makes Sarah successfully pursuit her goal becoming a doctor. Thus, love is more important than fame in life.
People might see Victor Delamonte as a successful businessman. With his own ability he magnificently develops his business from nothing to a large
company. He works very hard to rise his status from nobody to the fourteenth- richest man in the world. His vault is already filled billion dollars and gold is
obvious, but he just cannot stop filling his bank. He keeps on working all days and nights to increase his fame and wealth more. Thus, he puts his working first before
his wife.
Gonsalves stated that through work, people transform the earth and its resources, adapting them to personal needs and desires, and they also fulfill
themselves as persons, becoming more human, developing their humanity further 1986:426. Furthermore, he also stated that work makes family life and its upkeep
possible, and it also makes possible the achievement of other family purposes, one of which is education 1986:426. In the workplace, people can learn something
good and beneficiary for his or her life. Then, he or she can deliver the workplace lesson to his or her family in a form of education. To do this, people will have to
think about how to spend their daily time in the workplace and home wisely. If it is not in balance, he or she will have to choose one and lose another. Therefore, in The
Time Keeper, Victor’s consequence as he choose to spend much time in working is he only has less time for Grace.
He began to travel alone, working on the plane and even more at his destination. They stopped playing tennis. Museum trips grew rare. They
never had children. Grace regretted that. She told Victor so over the years. It was one of the things that led them to talk less Albom, 2013:54.
Victor thinks that he would be happy if he works hard and stacks up more billion dollars every day. Despite Grace always tells him that they should spend
time together more and have a child, Victor never changes his mind. Thus, he is driven further from Grace as Albom stated “the marriage felt like something
spilled” 2013:54 and turned into a more greedy person. After Victor experiences how his future would be if he is to continue his
cryonics plan, he rethinks about it because it is not worthy at all. In a distant future, he learns that his plan is fail. There is no one who would cares and protects his
body. Right in this moment, he remembers that he still has Grace and stops the
cryonics process. In the end, he decides to spend his last three months Grace who confirms that “those were the most precious months of their marriage” Albom,
2013:235. Gonsalves stated that “wealth, family, honor, fame, position, power, and
influence, not only can be possessed with unhappiness, but also can cause unhappiness by the care and burden they impose” 1986:221. By saying this, he
emphasizes that fame and wealth cannot make people happy as there are some desires cannot be satisfied by owning those things only, such as knowledge and
love. The life of Victor Delamonte is the real example. He has fame and wealth but he is not happy. He does not realizes that his happiness is next to him, through
Grace who loves him so much. It is something that Victor could not see because people often does not appreciate what they have until it is gone. Lucky for Victor
he learns his lesson through the visions he has in the cryonics laboratory. Therefore, it can be assumed that fame and wealth are not the most important things in life
because they cannot guarantee happiness that can be achieved through love experiences.
3. Being yourself and believing in what you are capable of are great things to
do in life
There are so many people live on earth. Each of them is unique and special. Each of them are granted traits different from another whether it is good or bad
ones. Although humans is a perfect creature for they can think and feel, there is no one who has good characteristics only. Because humans have mind and feeling,
they can judge and differ the good and bad things from their experiences.
In The Time Keeper, Albom described Sarah Lemon as an insecure teenage girl. One of the reason she feels insecure is because of the divorce of her parents.
After the separation, she has been alienated from her father. Thus, having failed getting attention from her father, she release her stress by eating which makes her
fatty. The unattractive body she has is another reason she feels insecure. Looking herself through the mirror, has created a disgusted feeling into her mind. For that
reason, she restricts herself from having friends in the school and having conversation with Lorraine.
Even though she only sees her weaknesses which then leading her to commit suicide, she has her own strengths. Her intelligence and responsibility is far above
everyone else in the school. But for her, it may looked too common because, as people say, the grass is always greener. Often, she compares herself to another
people above her who looks pretty and popular. It becomes worse as she meets Ethan whom she considers as her lover. Getting closer to Ethan creates a feeling of
proud to her. She tries to look pretty in front of Ethan by using make ups so that she thinks she is equal with other popular girls in school.
When Ethan makes fun of her on his facebook, suddenly Sarah feels like her world crumbles. She is not meant to be with Ethan because, however, she is still the
same old Sarah Lemon. She will never be pretty and popular because she always be the geeky Sarah no matter how hard she tries. Therefore, despite using her strengths
to move on, she lets her weaknesses filled her mind and commits suicide. The suicidal action that Sarah takes is not a spontaneous act. Before meeting
Ethan, she already had that thought once when being alienated. But the alienation
