How does Alvarez use contrasting imagery to debelop a theme in the epilogue

In the epilogue, it is revealed indirectly that Dede has had a breast removed due to cancer. This absence on her body preoccupies her, and it also symbolizes the absence of her family and all those she has lost. It is also one more loss to count on the list. When she compares Minou to Minerva in her mind, "absently, my hand travels to my foam breast and presses gently, worrying an absence there." While she worries about not hearing the spirits of her sisters running about through the house as she falls asleep, "my hand worries the absence on my left side, a habitual gesture now. My pledge of allegiance, I call it, to all that is missing." For Dede, so much of her story is a story of loss, but in finally telling so much of the story this time, in honoring their memory, she has stilled, at least momentarily, the ghosts of those she has lost.