"War is like a big machine that no one really knows how to run and when it gets out of control it ends up destroying the things you thought you were fighting for, and a lot of other things you kinda forgot you had."-Lidia (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111667/quotes). For Lidia, this quote has more than one meaning. She has come to an understanding of her father's life and morals. She realizes her father went to war thinking he was doing the right thing for his country, even though it wasn't what he wanted to do. He ended up losing his mind, losing his best friend, and almost losing his family. Lidia applies this to her own life in the conflict between her side, her brother Stew and his friends and her best friends, and the Lipnicki family. This specifically applies to when the Lipnickis and the Simmons (and friends) violently fight over the tree house. The tree house is completely destroyed afterwards and Billy Lipnicki almost loses his life, a life hardly cared about by anyone until after the fact. Lidia recognizes that Stew lost pieces of his father. Not literal pieces but his father's key was lost and the lock was nearly taken. Lidia learned from this. She learned the importance of accepting other perspectives and seeing someone else's side of the story. She took her father's views and applied them to her life and everything changed.
"Boy, sometimes all it takes is a split second for you to do something you'll regret the whole rest of your life."-Steven Simmons (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111667/quotes). Stew takes everything his father tells him to heart. He has so much respect for his father but he also has a hard time controlling his emotions. Although he appreciates his father's stories and words from the moment he hears them, he acts on his emotions first. It takes a bigger lesson to really impact Stew into living his life in the way his father tells him to. Every time the Lipnickis come around causing trouble, Stew flares up. He will pick a fight with them, he bottles up anger toward them and he spends a great deal of his time just despising them. His father's death puts him over the edge and he initiates the big tree house fight. When Stew saves Billy Lipnicki from drowning in the water tower the words of his father become clear to him, the words imprint on him and he knows he will never be the same. In this moment, Stew becomes overwhelmed with regret. Everything his father says finally makes sense. He understands why his father gave away his mom and sister's cotton candy to the lipnicki kids and why he always says to just be polite to them, not to fight. He becomes the bigger person.
Lidia and Stew learn how to deal with conflict from their father. Through the struggle of losing their father and the conflicts in the story they are able to grow from their experiences. When Lidia opens her mind she sees that her father isn't a selfish man, he is actually the most selfless man she ever knows. Stew is able to see the pain the Lipnickis suffer and appreciate what his father does for them. He is able to understand that the Lipnicki's are subjected to abuse, they don't have a source of love and that is why they are the way they are. Stew also learns how to handle his extreme emotion toward the Lipnickis through empathy and control. For the rest of the Simmons children's lives they will remember the words their father spoke and the days that make them stick. Their viewpoint on the world will forever be enlightened because of the things their father teaches them.
