Unimaginable

Author’s Note: This is the Cause and Effect piece on The Best of Me, by Nicholas Sparks. If you have not read the  book and are planning to do so, just a warning, I spoil the ending!

The unimaginable can always happen. As a nation, we tend to think that nothing bad will happen to us, until it does. Amanda, the main character in Nicholas Spark’s The Best of Me, thought these things too. She always assumed that even if she made mistakes, nothing extremely bad could happen to her. But then, one night, her son gets in a car accident, and is told that there is a rare chance that he would live. However, none of this would have happened if he was never in the car, none of this would ever have happened if just a few simple events changed.

The point of no return for this book was when Amanda’s son got in a car accident. You can’t reverse that. As much as the reader or the characters may want that event to change, it can’t.  Once the car was hit, the mark was left forever. Once the crash was set in stone, the passengers of the cars would be injured from that day on. Once the son was in dangerous health, the story had really started.

Amanda’s son would have never been in the car if it wasn’t for his father. Getting overly intoxicated that night, Frank needed to call his son to drive him home. If he wasn’t a responsible adult like he should have been, their son would have never even been in the car in the first place. Calling the son to come and drive may not have seemed like such a big deal, but in the long run it is what caused the accident.

Though getting in a car accident may have seemed like the end of the world, there were a few positive effects in the result of it. Being very sick, and in need of a replacement heart, Amanda’s son was about to die. Hopes were high to get a donation heart, but reality showed them that it wasn’t very likely. Through torturous days of painful waiting, Amanda’s long lost love from high school died, and his heart was a perfect match. Amanda’s son got her old lovers heart. This would have never happened if not for the car accident.

Thinking that nothing bad could ever happen to you is horrible. Awful things will happen to you, it’s true. However, when they do you have the choice to either be prepared and positive, or negative and not understanding. Even when things go wrong, you have to keep your head up because even through bad things, wonderful things can happen.