Blessing, Curse, and Metaphor

About a week ago, I finished The Fault in Our Stars for the third time.  Over a few days afterwards, I had a few thoughts about it.  This is the first of two posts about them.

Near the end of the novel, Augustus Waters comments on the water that fills up in Hazel's lungs because of her cancer.  He writes that it's "a desert blessing, an ocean curse."  And while he's talking about the "dark cancer water," his phrase also applies to an-other type of water:  Augustus Waters himself.

A good portion of the novel deals with the effects of people upon other people.  Two different views on this, specifically regarding others' deaths, are presented in the novel.  At the beginning, Hazel believes that she's a grenade.  "I just want to stay away from people and read books and think and be with you guys [her parents] because there's nothing I can do about hurting you; you're too invested, so just please let me do that, okay?"  Because she knows that her death is inevitable, she wants to prevent people from becoming invested because that investment will later cause grief upon her death.

But after meeting Augustus Waters and falling in love with him, her position changes.  The book ends with her affirming her choice in who hurts her and in whom she is invested, namely: Augustus Waters.  She recognizes that death will cause grief but also that that does not invalidate the relationships that people have.  The curse does not replace the blessing.  And because Augustus Waters is the catalyst for this change in perspective, it's fitting that the blessing/curse description is of water.

What I'm a bit unsure of is whether Augustus Waters realizes how apt this is - the literal description of the water in Hazel's lungs matching the metaphorical water in his own name and self.  He's a character who bases his actions of their metaphorical implications, so it seems unlikely (even incongruous) that he would miss something like this, but he never explicitly talks about it.