Fame and wealth are not the most important things in life
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
is not a good reason for her to commit suicide so she delayed it. The society tend to prefer the popular ones instead the smart ones. This way of thinking will next lead
to bullying. And Sarah Lemon finally felt the impact of bullying through Facebook. The society of her age mocks her for getting a close relationship with Ethan.
Therefore, the bullying she receives is a trigger of why she has to commit suicide. Luckily, she is shown flashes of future if she is to commit suicide. From those
views, she finally understands that she is valuable to some people such as her mother and people from the shelter. She would never thought Lorraine and the
people from shelter miss her so much if she is gone. She realizes that committing suicide is not a solution for her problems. She needs to overcome her weaknesses
by sharpen her strengths more. Thus, in a near future, she becomes a scientist who finds a cure for cancer. Thanks to Victor Delamonte, Sarah gets a chance to study
medics in a college and reaches her goal. Sarah also notes that this would never have been possible if not for a
benefactor named Victor Delamonte, who, back when she was applying to colleges, had generously bequeathed her entire tuition costs to an Ivy
League university-undergraduate, medical school, as far as she could go-in his last will and testament, a document that was changed drastically just
before he died from the very disease for which Sarah had now found a cure Albom, 2013:235.
Thus, the moral value from Sarah experiences is just be ourselves no matter what weaknesses people see in you and develop our strengths to reach our goal.