Head-body ratios fluctuate in Special Exits, and the proportions of bodily extremities to torsos sometimes make parts of characters seem closer to readers than the placement of their bodies in relation to furniture would otherwise suggest.  The unusual sizing of the body parts and bodies in relation to their surroundings help account for tensions that the text raises and cannot resolve because of the relatively early stage of grief in which it ends.  Certain uncertainties cannot be adequately answered, and centering out-of-proportion figures and parts allows the panels to hold these anxieties rather than superficially “tying up loose ends.”  These are “exits,” after all, and not endings, per se.

When weighing her options with the Hospice workers, Laura’s head makes the rest of her body seem smaller, as she cringes, crosses her right arm over her waist, and presses her legs together tightly (Farmer 175).  She is shrinking herself out of the panel, but her unresolved dilemma about her father’s care is central, ballooning her head: “Tough choice, that!”  All eyes are on her, and she looks away from readers and people in the panel, her left hand fingers pushing up against her tight-lipped, tense mouth as she asks, “Can we get some physical therapy for him?”  The answer leaves her just as tense; there is no unambiguous choice in decisions about her father’s care.  The consequences take up space in the panel by engorging her brain so that one part of her takes up more space than the rest of her physical presence, which she diminishes visually while taking care of her father towards the very end of his life.  Even her facial expressions remain stylized and have less range than those of her parents; a level of compromise happens when she cares for them, and the memoir centers her parents’ character development.  Her head has to be full of thoughts but those thoughts can’t all leak out because they might overtake the focus of Special Exits, as her out-of-proportion head threatens to overtake some panels.

Similarly, the nurses’ judgmental expressions seem larger-than-life, although their bodies have a sort of stylized proportionality (Farmer 141).  In fact, their bodies must take up an unusual but not a larger space than their faces because their body language conveys just as much judgment: they overhear the conversation about how/if/when Lars hurt Rachel.  Standing in for readers’ unanswered questions about the stress of caring for a loved one and the possibility of abuse, they reproach Laura and Lars in the hallway, glaring at them with unresolved anger that the text never resolves.  In the center of the panel, they raise ambivalent responses to Lars, complicating the empathy that the text may engender for him.

Laura’s feet and head seem closer to readers than Ching, although Ching sits just in front of Laura’s chair and her footrest, the cat’s tail touching the carpet, which is closest to readers in relation to the background and foreground of the panel (Farmer 200).  Background and foreground seem delineated by a vase on a table near the wall as the farthest point visible in the background, in front of which is a chair, in front of which is Laura’s chair and her footstool (slightly closer to the foreground than that chair), Ching, and the carpet at the bottom and lower right corner of the panel.  Granted, Ching is an itty bitty feline, but Laura’s foot, her magazine, and her head seem just his size.  Overtaken by Laura and objects in the panel, Ching seems to be shrinking out of the narrative, as does any richly detailed home décor detail.  Meanwhile, the rest of Laura’s body seems relatively proportionate to the chair and footstool.  Both chairs are about the same size, although Laura’s seems closer (judging by its placement on the floor) to readers than the wooden chair near the back wall.  However, the back wall is vague, illuminated as much by seemingly random shadows as by the light that seems to come from multiple points in the panel.  Neither light, proportions, or object placement in the panel can anchor the images therein.  In contrast, most earlier panels feature densely shadowed, textured backgrounds, particularly the kitchen and living room of Lars and Rachel’s home.  Ching takes up more space and is only slightly off-center in the final panel, similar to his position in that page’s first panel, when he jumps the fence (Farmer 200).  Clawing and cuddling Laura in the final panel, as she exclaims, “Dad!  Dad!  Can you see this?!” the cat seems to represent Laura’s stage of grief: she accepts the loss of her father, and she is letting go, but she seeks an ongoing connection with his memory.  The cat escapes, returns out of anxiety (and possibly dog-related injury), and claw-cuddles Laura; his departure is bittersweet, tense, characterized by conflict (“Bark?,” “Mee Yow!,”  Woof?,” etc.) and incomplete.  Ching leaves only temporarily; Laura has not quite reached a point where her father’s “exit” seems permanent.  Nonetheless, Ching’s continual shrinking in the middle panels on the page and the cat’s character shift at the end (Ching may grudgingly offer Laura affection) offer a potential for gradual letting-go, albeit one that claws as much as it embraces.