Holiday Lights Symbol Analysis

The nearby park’s holiday light display, which is visible from Saint Grace’s hospital, represents the enticing experiences that Stella, Will, and Poe perceive as unattainable to them due to their cystic fibrosis. Having a chronic illness limits their lifestyles since they are at increased risk for infections, and their lungs are very weak. When Stella’s sister Abby was still alive, Stella and Abby visited the holiday lights together every winter. Since Abby died, Stella takes her health even more seriously because she thinks her parents wouldn’t be able to cope if she died, too. Stella misses her senior trip to Mexico because of cystic fibrosis, and she gazes longingly at the holiday lights from her room for weeks, unable to leave the hospital. Ultimately, Stella decides that living such a highly regimented life is not worthwhile, and—against Saint Grace’s rules—she decides to escape the hospital with Will on a perilous adventure to visit the lights. On this journey, Stella decides to forego receiving a lung transplant so that she can continue her relationship with Will. This decision proves to be both impractical and dangerous—Stella and Will’s poor health prevents them from making it to the park to see the lights, and after falling into a frozen pond, Stella does ultimately go ahead with the transplant. This seems to imply that Stella can’t have both: she can care for her health, or she can have meaningful experiences, but she cannot have both.

Later, when Will and Stella say their final goodbyes, Will surprises Stella by bringing the holiday lights to the hospital, so that Stella can see them up close. In the end, Stella is finally able to see the lights while also taking care of her health. At first, the visible but distant holiday lights represent all the experiences Stella and Will long for but can’t have, but when Will brings the lights to the hospital, Stella realizes that with enough motivation and creativity, a life with cystic fibrosis can still contain meaningful adventures and relationships.