Quote 31
I lay on my back with my knees hanging over the precipice and screamed. I screamed because the Colonel was a self-satisfied, condescending bastard, and I screamed because he was right, for I did want to believe that I'd had a secret love affair with Alaska. Did she love me? Would she have left Jake for me? Or was it just another impulsive Alaska moment? (20after.17)
The death of a loved one often leaves us with unanswered questions, and part of the suffering that comes with death is the fact that these questions will never be answered. What realizations does Miles have about his suffering at this moment in the novel? Miles suffers because of these uncertainties in addition to his guilt… and he suffers because Alaska wasn't who he wanted her to be.
Quote 32
The Buddha said that suffering was caused by desire, we'd learned, and that the cessation of desire meant the cessation of suffering. When you stopped wishing things wouldn't fall apart, you'd stop suffering when they did. (51after.3)
Yet again the Old Man's class and lectures provide Miles a way to think about healing from Alaska's death and the guilt he feels about it. Miles starts to think about his desire—for Alaska, for himself—and the idea that everything changes. The question is whether Miles will be able to accept the falling-apart-ness of the world enough to heal.
Quote 33
That which came together will fall apart imperceptibly slowly, and I will forget, but she will forgive my forgetting, just as I forgive her for forgetting me and the Colonel and everyone but herself and her mom in those last moments she spent as a person. (136after.14)
Miles realizes that forgiveness is his way out of the labyrinth of suffering, and he mourns his realization that Alaska was never able to forgive herself for her role in her mother's death. This is not the same view as the Colonel's take on suffering. Think about how the ways to deal with suffering are presented in the book and which are most in line with your own beliefs.