What This Theme Explores
Grief, Loss, and Mortality in The Crossover asks what we hold onto when the people who shaped us begin to fade—and what breaks when they do. The novel explores how loss arrives first in small fractures before opening into an irreplaceable absence, charting a path from denial and anger to an imperfect, tender acceptance. Through Chuck "Da Man" Bell, his son Josh, and his twin Jordan, the book considers how boys confront the mortality of a hero and how love must re-form after the unthinkable. Ultimately, the story suggests that memory and ritual become the handrails that steady a family in the dark.
How It Develops
Loss first whispers rather than roars. In the early poems, Josh’s dreadlocks—his signature style and swagger—are taken from him in Cut, a “calamity” that feels outsized but is also emotionally true; identity is the first thing grief tests. At the same time, Dad’s patella tendinitis and persistent hypertension mark his body as vulnerable, the athlete’s invincibility already in retreat.
The losses compound and shift from the personal to the relational. Josh worries he is losing JB to a new orbit when Alexis enters the picture, and the twins’ dynamic—once seamless—develops seams. Health scares grow louder: a choking spell during free throws, a sudden nosebleed in the stands. The book braids these threads so that the fear of losing a brother and the fear of losing a father echo each other.
Conflict turns loss into consequence. After Josh’s impulsive play injures JB, he is suspended and, more importantly, estranged from his twin—his most essential teammate. That period of being estranged sits like a rehearsal for the deeper absence to come, even as Dad’s vomiting episode signals a crisis the family isn’t ready to face.
Then the quiet prelude ends. During a noon workout, Josh watches the unwatchable in At Noon, in the Gym, with Dad: Dad’s body betrays him. The diagnosis—a myocardial infarction—moves the story to the hospital, where Josh’s denial, rage, and bargaining crackle across the page. The obituary-style “Article #2 in the Daily News (January 14)” confirms the loss, and “Where Do We Go from Here?” renders the funeral as a rule-less game, closing the arc with disorientation and the first fragile gestures toward healing.
Key Examples
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Foreshadowing through health scares: Dad’s sudden nosebleed at JB’s game removes any illusion that his struggles are private or manageable; the body exposes what the family wants to deny. The image of Mom’s tissue for her tears paired with Dad’s blood collapses tenderness and terror into a single frame, making mortality a presence courtside.
I watch
Mom take a tissue from
her purse to wipe her tears,
and the sudden onset of
blood from Dad’s nose. -
The collapse: The gym scene compresses time into breathless fragments, mimicking panic as control evaporates. Each falling word—ball, then Dad—signals a before and after for the family, turning the court from sanctuary into shock.
Breath short
More sweat
Grabs chest
Eyes roll
Ball drops
Dad drops -
Josh’s anger and denial: In the hospital, Josh lashes out at everything—his haircut, CPR, the dunk—because anger is easier to hold than helplessness. His outburst captures a classic stage of grief while revealing the tender center of his fury: love he can’t protect.
Because I feel empty with no hair.
Because CPR DOESN’T WORK!
Because if Dad hadn’t tried to dunk, then we wouldn’t be here.
Because I don’t want to be here.
Because the only thing that matters is swish.
Because our backboard is splintered. -
Finality at the funeral: The book’s language strips sports of its saving scripts—no coaches, no practice, no buzzer-beaters. By recasting mourning as a game that cannot be won, the poem forces the characters—and readers—to sit with grief instead of competing against it.
There are no coaches
at funerals. No practice
to get ready. No warm-up.
There is no last-second shot, and
we all wear its cruel
midnight uniform, starless
and unfriendly.
Character Connections
Josh narrates grief in motion. He loses piece by piece—hair, team status, the twin bond, then his father—and each loss tests who he is when basketball can’t rescue him. His ultimate growth lies in transforming rage into ritual, using memory and play to reconnect with JB and carry their father forward.
Chuck embodies mortality without surrendering his charisma. His refusal to see a doctor is both pride and denial, a tragic flaw that makes his fall feel both preventable and inexorable. The arc from dazzling talent to diminished body interrogates the myths boys inherit about toughness—and the cost of believing them.
JB’s grief is quieter but no less acute. He retreats from the game that linked him to Dad because the court is now stained with absence; choosing the hospital over the championship reorders his values in real time. Through JB, the novel shows grief as withdrawal, tears, and a gradual return when love is ready.
As a clinician and mother, Dr. Crystal Bell fights on two fronts: against disease with knowledge and against despair with steadiness. Her urgency about appointments and prevention contrasts with Chuck’s avoidance, highlighting gendered and cultural tensions around health care. She becomes the family’s anchor, absorbing shock so her sons can begin to feel.
Symbolic Elements
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Dad’s championship ring: Once a symbol of swagger and victory, the ring becomes a relic of relationship after Dad’s death. When JB hands it to Josh, the transfer marks a shift from athletic dominance to custodianship of memory and responsibility.
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The basketball court: The court is both chapel and crime scene—where the family bonds and where their world breaks. In the final free throws, reclaiming that space models how grief can be integrated rather than exiled.
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Josh’s locks: The haircut is an early amputation of self, foreshadowing later, larger severances. It teaches Josh—and the reader—the ache of involuntary change, preparing us for the magnitude of losing Dad.
Contemporary Relevance
The novel’s portrait of a family confronting a father’s sudden decline resonates across age and culture, giving young readers a vocabulary for feelings often too tangled to name. Its attention to hypertension, masculinity, and reluctance to seek care foregrounds urgent conversations about men’s health and prevention, especially in communities disproportionately affected by cardiac risk. By merging poetry with sport, The Crossover models healthy grieving practices—naming emotion, leaning on family, and creating rituals—that readers can carry into their own lives.
Essential Quote
“A loss is inevitable, / like snow in winter.”
This rule distills the book’s hard wisdom: grief is not an exception but a season we all must weather. By naming inevitability without nihilism, the line reframes loss as something to prepare for together, so that when winter comes, love—and memory—can be the warmth that gets us through.