Before I Die

Tessa’s father is her main caretaker. Tessa frequently resents his concern and devotion, even though—and, possibly, because—she depends on it so much. In a variety of ways, his dependability makes Tessa want to escape. First, he is patient, exhausted and set in his ways, representing a dreary vision of adulthood. Second, because he is responsible for Tessa’s day-to-day health needs, he reminds Tessa constantly of her illness. Submitting to his caretaking without resistance for Tessa would be resigning herself to the fact of her death when she has barely lived.

At the same time, her father’s occasional deviations from his role as devoted caretaker irritate Tessa. Although she has often longed for her divorced parents to reconcile, she feels perplexed and annoyed when they tentatively do so. Similarly, although she often sneaks out of the house, she feels hurt and abandoned when her father goes out one afternoon for a cup of coffee, telling her that he needs a little time alone. However, at the end of the novel, Tessa has accepted her father, as a responsible and hardworking parent with his own human needs. 

Tessa’s mother is her father’s opposite; their differences were what initially attracted them to one another and what eventually pulled them apart. Tessa’s mother comes from a wealthy background while Tessa’s father comes from a working-class one. She is impulsive and adventurous while he is solid and hardworking. Tessa’s mother’s privileged background has led her not take any of her commitments too seriously, including her commitment to her family.

As she grows more ill, Tessa learns to appreciate her mother despite seeing her flaws. Her mother’s childish nature means that she can be fun and entertaining in ways that her father, weighed down by the responsibility of caring for Tess, is not. Thus, although her mother is useless at the hospital in terms of describing Tessa’s symptoms to the doctor, she can entertain Tessa and the caretaking team with her stories and good humor.

At the same time, Tessa knows that her mother has abandoned the family once before and is capable of doing it again. In a letter that she writes to her mother from her deathbed, Tessa tells her, “I’m watching you” (310), effectively summarizing her relationship with her mother as both loving and admonishing. 

Cal is Tessa’s younger brother. He exists at the periphery of Tessa’s life, sometimes as her accomplice and confidant, and at other times as a pest and a nuisance. Despite Tessa’s illness, she and Cal have a normal sibling relationship, and he often finds her strange and abrasive, as an older sister and a teenage girl. Her illness has been a constant background reality for him for many years, so he takes it as given and uses it as a way of connecting with his sister. For example, when Tessa makes an amusing remark to him, he tells her that he will miss her when she is gone; when the two of them fight, he tells her that he hopes she dies horribly.

Once Tessa enters the hospital, Cal’s vulnerability begins to emerge. He is the child left behind once Tessa is gone; he will have to cope with a fickle mother and a grieving father. We also see how his early flippancy around Tessa’s illness has masked a deeper denial of it: Before Tessa’s death, he is the one family member who refuses to say goodbye to Tessa, because he can’t really accept that she will be gone.

Next-door neighbor Adam is Tessa’s boyfriend. Tessa initially finds him ugly and odd, yet these qualities also attract and intrigue her. Her illness makes her often feel misshapen and ugly as well, and she understands the feeling of being an outcast. Adam’s oddity turns out to stem from family tragedy: His father has died in a car crash, which rendered his mother reclusive and depressed. Adam has been his mother’s caretaker and sole connection to the world for some time; therefore, he is well suited to getting romantically involved with Tessa. He is wayward and solitary, but also devoted and loyal: He gives Tessa hallucinogenic mushrooms and sleeps at the foot of her deathbed. 

As Adam and Tessa’s relation deepens, Tessa’s physical impression of him changes, and she begins to think of him as beautiful rather than ugly. This may be due to her growing love for him, but also seems due to his normal energy, in contrast to her waning one. When the two of them are sexually intimate, seeing his healthy body up close makes her feel both distant from him and drawn to him.