TOW #6- "Now We Are Five" - David Sedaris

For my TOW this week I read "Now We Are Five" by David Sedaris. It is a short memoir about the suicide of David's youngest sister, Tiffany. In this memoir, David reflects on the memories he had with his family and his sister. David's purpose is to illustrate the impact of losing a loved one can have. David uses flashbacks, comparisons, and repetition in this essay to fulfill this purpose. His audience is anyone, young or old, who has lost a loved one. One example is, "In the past, when my family rented a cottage my sisters and I would crowd the door like puppies around a food dish"(Section 3 Sedaris). In this example, the author is reflecting on when his family would visit a cottage every summer, and how much fun and memorable these trips were. Sedaris uses old memories of these trips and compares and contrasts it to when his family took the same trip after Tiffany's death. He comments on the memories of his childhood, and then uses the differences between then and more recent memories to show the changes his family has gone through over time. This comparison between two different times also shows the significance Tiffany's death had on David's family, as much of the trip is spent remembering her. David also using repetition through this dialogue: "'Six kids!' people would say. 'How do your poor folks manage?'"(Section 1 Sedaris). The author mentions this dialogue early in the essay to emphasize the big family he had, and how uses he was to having six in his family, instead of only five. He makes this statement much more significant by closing the essay with a similar phrase. He ends the essay mentioning a dialogue with a friend: "'That makes five-wow! Now, that's a big family'"(Section 10 Sedaris). This repetition is very meaningful and helps to signify the impact the death of his sister had, and how there is now an empty spot in his family that can't be filled again. This essay fulfills the purpose of showing the significance a death of a loved one can have. It successfully reaches out to audiences who have been through similar experiences, and encourages them to keep the people they lost in memory and to honor them.