Near the end of Mary Downing Hahn’s December Stillness, a novel about a teenage girl named Kelly who tries to get to know and understand a homeless Vietnam veteran named Mr. Weems, there is a tragic event. Mr. Weems is killed in what seems like a tragic accident. However, even though his death was tragic, it was not an accident. He, like many other war veterans, was severely haunted by the acts which he and others had committed in Vietnam. Due to the trauma of the war and losses he suffers in the course of the book, it is clear that Mr. Weems’ death was not an accident. Like many war veterans who return suffering from severe depression and mental illness he reached a point where he couldn’t go on and decided to end his life. Even though it may have appeared like an accident, he killed himself using a car. He intentionally walked out in front of the car which struck and killed him.
Mr. Weems was a Vietnam veteran and he came every day to the library with his bags and read war books. He is dirty and dishevelled. Kelly began by watching him and later talked with him. At first she was joking and was studying him only for a paper on homeless Vietnam veterans but as time went on she
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Weems’ isolation is seen when Kelly realized that the library was the only place that he could go to be warm and dry each day, before he would have to go, with all his belongings each night, and sleep in the woods. Kelly even came to worry about him if it was a holiday like Thanksgiving as he would have no place to go. As she says, “‘He won’t have anyplace to go, ‘“(Hahn 92). When he gets kicked out of the library she becomes even more concerned and exclaims, “‘He gets kicked out of the only place where he could stay warm and dry!’” (Hahn 144). The worry she shows in this statement shows how vulnerable she knew Mr. Weems was. These words reflect how important the library was for Mr. Weems. She knew that without it he would be totally isolated from then