Full Measures

Full Measures explores how profound grief can disable a parent, compelling a child to assume adult responsibilities. This premature burden leads Ember to suppress her own emotional needs for her family’s sake, illustrating the unique pressures placed upon children in military families facing catastrophic loss. From the moment of her father’s death notification, Ember assumes a parental role because her mother, June, collapses on the stairs, unable to respond to the officers, and retreats into a state of shock. Ember manages the initial arrangements, finds her father’s binder outlining his final wishes, and informs her seven-year-old brother, Gus, that their father is never coming home. This immediate role reversal establishes a dynamic in which Ember’s grief becomes secondary to the functional needs of her family. The immense “weight of responsibility” (6) settles on her shoulders, dislodging her own pain so that she can ensure her family’s basic survival. She even makes a vow over her father’s coffin, “I will take care of them, I promise” (30).

Ember’s new role extends beyond logistics to managing her younger siblings’ destructive coping mechanisms, forcing her into the position of a disciplinarian. She discovers that her sister, April, has been skipping school and running up thousands of dollars in debt on their mother’s credit card. When Ember confronts her, April rejects Ember’s authority, highlighting the unnatural and stressful dynamic of their new relationship. Ember must simultaneously police her sister’s self-destructive behavior and emotionally support Gus. Meanwhile, Ember initially receives little support herself, and in addition to learning of her father’s death, experiences a devastating breakup with a boyfriend who not only is emotionally unavailable but also has been cheating on her. Ember thus feels isolated and delays her own grieving process because she has no space to confront her own loss while managing the emotional and practical needs of her siblings and incapacitated mother. In addition, as Ember’s relationship with Josh changes from caring support to romantic love, she learns that he withheld the fact that he, too, is in the military, which leaves her reeling because she planned to avoid the potential pain of such a situation.

By showing how Ember sacrifices her own youth and emotional processing, the novel illustrates that in the face of incapacitating grief, responsibility is not a choice but a necessity for survival. Ember’s decision to transfer from her university to a local college solidifies her new identity as the family’s caretaker and underscores the profound and often unseen burdens that children in military families must bear, reshaping their futures in the crucible of loss.