Life on the refrigerator door by Alice Kuipers

The English Cover Version:
The Hebrew Cover Version:


I just finished reading this book. I think it's a must book. I read it in just under an hour, and that should tell you something.
It's not a long book. Some pages really have no more then one line in them, but the book takes you places.
The book is composed of notes left on the refrigerator door between a mother and her 15 year old daughter. A full year of notes. A year of dealing with a broken heart, with the loss of childhood in a sense, with growing up, with breast cancer, with death.
Maybe cause my own mom died of breast cancer I felt this book so much, I don't know. I only know I couldn't put it down, and I ended up crying.
As I'm trying to think how I feel about this book I realise that I love and hate it both at the same time. It's stirring up things inside that I don't want to deal with.
My own mom got cancer while she was pregnant with me, but it was diagnosed only after my birth, when it was too late. She went through three years of treatments, losing one breast, radiation and chemo, being in bed most of the time, and then she was gone.
I was three when she died, so it's no wonder I hardly remember her at all. I have two small memories from her, two pictures in my mind. That's all. Everything I know about her came from stories, from other people, and I think that's one of my greatest regrets, that I didn't get the chance to get to know her personally. But that's life, right?
I'm going to put this book aside now, but I know I'll read it again. And again. And again.