"To the hell with dying" By: Alice Walker

“To the hell with dying” is a story from Alice Walker that talks about a curious situation in a girl and her family life. That situation is related with the relation they have with their neighbor Mr. Sweet. A man that is alcoholic and diabetic and weak emotionally. The girl that narrates the story tells how she and her brothers share with Mr. Sweet, playing the guitar singing and dancing. The kids loved him. When he was with them they feel he was part of them, like a child. He made them to feel comfort, like in group. Kids and Mr. Sweet were friends.
When Mr. Sweet became worse in his sickness, he fell in his bed with a really no good aspect, the people believe he probably could die, but the family of the girl made like revivals with him.
I believe it was the family love and their attachment to him, what made him remain alive. They use to throw out the death away from Mr. Sweet. In the revivals what they do was express that they loved and want him alive, and fill him of kisses and affection. I think Mr. Sweet also loved them and they were one of the reasons because he really lives or liked to live, because they made him feel important, admired and loved.
A very curious fact of the story for me is the relation that the girl who narrates the story had with Mr. Sweet. He made her feel so different, happy, nostalgic, and he use to call her “my princess” and she feel pretty and important.
Something that was very strange for me was at the end of the story when she was 24 years old and she recognizes, when Mr. Sweet died, that he was her first love. I knew she loved him, because they have a nice relation when she was a girl, but what I understood was that she loved him more like a father or a grandfather, who teach you things and call you princess and those things.