The major themes of Walk Two Moons include the feelings of grief as a response to death and loss, the discovery of self-identity, and hope. Creech uses Sal's physical journey to Idaho with her grandparents and the story she tells about Phoebe Winterbottom to portray her thematic messages.
As Sal tells about the disappearance of Phoebe's mother, and Phoebe's reaction to her loss, she recognizes similarities in her own experience when her mother deserts her (and her father) and is later killed in an accident. Both girls experience the stages of grief: anger, denial, and acceptance. Sal's initial thoughts, like Phoebe's, are "How could she do that? How could she leave me?" Sal is numb and cannot identify her feelings. When Sal's father tells her they are moving to Euclid, Sal throws "colossal temper tantrums." She remembers being ornery, just like Phoebe. Sal doesn't want to leave the farm, because she feels her mother might return. Likewise, Phoebe doesn't want to leave her house because her mother might call. Sal and Phoebe are both in denial about their mother's desertion. When Sal tells her father that Phoebe's mother has disappeared, he comforts her by saying "people usually come back." Despite the fact that her father is speaking generally, Sal finds hope in her father's comment. She believes that maybe her mother will come home and everything will be the way it used to be. Even when Mr. Winterbottom shows Phoebe all the food her mother left in the freezer in preparation for her departure, Phoebe still doesn't want to admit that her mother has left them. Sal and Phoebe both desperately want to believe their mother will be coming home. Because Sal is not able to see her dead mother or attend her funeral, she cannot put closure on her mother's life. It is not until Sal actually sees the accident site, sits at her mother's grave, and reads the headstone that she can finally accept her mother's death. Creech presents the notion that death and loss, as well as grief, are universal. All human beings experience the pain of loss. Creech allows her characters to experience the pain of loss as well as the feelings that accompany the acceptance of loss.
