Looking for Alaska: 59. One Hundred Thirty-Six Days After Summary & Analysis

On the last day of school, Miles finds a note from Takumi slipped under his door. In it, Takumi tells Miles that he has already left for Japan and apologizes for being mad at him all semester. He explains to Miles that he saw Alaska on the night that she died. She told Takumi that it was the anniversary of her mother’s death and that she had forgotten to put flowers on her mother’s grave. Takumi says that when she left, he thought she wasn’t going to do anything but look for flowers outside, so he let her go. He apologizes to Miles because he knows that he loved Alaska too.

Miles runs to Takumi’s room to forgive him but he’s already gone. In that moment, Miles realizes that forgiveness is the way out, and that Alaska forgave them and he forgives everyone else. He finally accepts that he will never know her last words and thoughts. He realizes that he will love her forever, despite the fact that he doesn’t know her completely.

Miles runs back home and sits down to write his religion paper. He writes that before he came to Culver Creek, he avoided the labyrinth by pretending it didn’t exist. He and the Colonel messed up with Alaska just like Alaska messed up with her mom, but while Alaska let that mistake ruin her life, Miles chooses to believe in the Great Perhaps.

Miles writes that eventually he will forget Alaska, but he knows that she will forgive him for that. In turn he forgives Alaska for being selfish and forgetting about everyone she left behind. Alaska’s body will return to the earth and be recycled, but Miles believes that Alaska was more than her body. He writes that “[t]here is a part of her greater than the sum of her knowable parts. And that part has to go somewhere because it cannot be destroyed.”

Miles knows that matter cannot be truly destroyed, and he believes that Alaska’s energy works the same way. He has hope because he believes that people are indestructible, and consequently, anything is survivable. He wishes that Alaska had not self-destructed because she did not need to. He says that “[w]e think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations.” Miles ends his essay by quoting Thomas Edison’s last words, “It’s very beautiful over there.” He says that he’s not sure where Alaska is, but he hopes it’s beautiful.