Zakariyya's Past

“Maybe her cells have done good for some people, but I woulda rather had my mother. If she hadn’t been sacrificed, I mighta growed up to be a lot better person than I am now” (Skloot 248).

It is quite sad to hear these words come from Henrietta’s youngest son Zakariyya who had the hardest time dealing with her death. He was in and out of jail during his fifty years of life and was always angered and upset about how Hopkins and the entire medical world had overlooked his family, especially his mother. The feeling he presented during chapter 30 were very honest and clear that he was not at all happy with the overall outcome of his mother’s cells being taken. He showed Rebecca Skloot that the way doctors and scientists dealt with their family was not what he wished. I feel that Zakariyya was extremely emotional during this meeting because it brought back old feeling and also new ones as well. When his sister Deborah gave him the photograph that Dr. Lengauer had given to her, Zakariyya was overwhelmed and showed his softer side bringing tears to his eyes. I feel that after he realized that there were people out there who cared about bringing his mother’s legacy to life he was content and wanted to be a part of the experience. Was it true what Zakariyya said, that if his mother had lived he would have been a better person than he was now? I do believe he would have had more love in his life and would have really benefited from a mothers love. Overall, this chapter was extremely beneficial to showing some more about the personal life behind a few of Henrietta Lack’s children.   

Word Count: 253

Skloot, Rebecca. "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" New York. Broadway Paperbacks, Crown Publishing, 2010. Print.

An Emotional Discovery

“If they’re doing research on Henrietta, she though, it’s only a matter of time before they come for Henrietta’s children, and maybe her grandchildren” (Skloot 180).

          When Bobbette Lacks discovered that her mother-in-law’s cells were being used in research and sold among scientists she was extremely upset that it was unknown to the entire family. This was to be a problem she thought because once Henrietta’s family found out this news, they were going to have a difficult time coping.  Once Bobbette relayed this news to her husband Lawrence he called Day to explain what his wife had just told him which was that “part of your mother, it’s alive” (Skloot 181). During this same time HeLa cells were causing a great contamination problem for labs across the world. It was vital that scientists contact the Lacks family to try and develop and identify genetic markers to identify which cells were Henrietta’s and which were not. This was going to involve her immediate family giving DNA samples to compare them to HeLa’s genes. One of the scientists stated that her family still went to Johns Hopkins, so it was not difficult to locate them. This was the beginning of an emotional time for the Lacks family because they were not fully informed about what was going on. It was especially hard on Deborah who assumed that she was going to get caner from the tests the doctors were giving her. Overall, this was a challenging time for the family and it was a life changing event for both them and the scientific community. 

Word Count: 237

Skloot, Rebecca. "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" New York. Broadway Paperbacks, Crown Publishing, 2010. Print.