The Descendants

The Descendants

by Kaui Hart Hemmings

★★★★

Set in Hawaii, this novel is a nuanced portrait of a family in distress. There’s Matt, the father who long ago checked out on his family. He’s forced to start parenting again when an accident puts his wife Joanie in a coma. He is left to reconnect with his two daughters, the troubled teen Alex, and 10-year-old Scotty who is growing up too fast, as they come to terms with Joanie’s situation.

Along the way he discovers Joanie might have been having an affair and quickly his grief becomes twisted with bitterness and confusion. He begins to question the decisions he has made over the past few years. Like most families, they are dysfunctional, yet they truly love each other.

The character of Joni is fascinating because we see her only through memories and her husband and daughter’s points of view. We never hear why she made the decisions she did, which doesn’t take anything away from the story, but it leaves us feeling as frustrated as Matt is.

This was one of the rare cases when I saw the movie first, but I’m still glad I went back and read the book. The movie version is excellent, but the book adds even more depth because we can hear Matt’s internal monologue and struggle as he tries to reconnect with his daughters and come to terms with his relationship with his wife.

BOTTOM LINE: I was surprised by how much I loved this book. Even though the two teenage daughters were annoying at times, it was necessary for the dynamic of the story. It was a great study in grief and love and all the confusing emotions in between. 

“That's how you know you love someone, I guess, when you can't experience anything without wishing the other person were there to see it, too.”

“Get used to it. She'll be there for the rest of your life. She'll be there on birthdays, at Christmastime, when you get your period, when you graduate, have sex, when you marry, have children, when you die. She'll be there and she won't be there.”

The Optimist's Daughter

The Optimist's Daughter

by Eudora Welty

★★★★

Our title character, Laurel, is a young widowed woman who returns home to Mississippi when her father becomes ill. Soon she finds herself reeling after his death and she must grieve while trying to deal with her acerbic step-mother Fay. 

The descriptions of Laurel’s time in her hometown felt so real to me. I remember going through the motions of regular life while being wracked with grief. I could feel her frustration as she has to listen to old biddies gossip and prattle on with their exaggerated stories when all she wants is to be alone with her pain. The plot never became melodramatic; instead Laurel calmly suffers through the indignities of dealing with unbearable neighbors and old friends. She keeps her thoughts to herself, processing things in her own quiet way.

One thing that really rang true for me was Laurel’s struggle between what she knew of her father and what people were saying about him. People’s memories of the deceased are often contradictory. They are tainted with our own opinions and experiences. Laurel’s know this, but it’s still painful to hear people wax poetic about her father in a way that doesn’t ring true.

“What’s happening isn’t real,” Laurel said, low.

“The ending of a man’s life on earth is very real indeed,” Miss Adele said.

“But what people are saying.”

Fay is a character that’s easy to dislike, but when I dig a bit deeper I can’t help but pity her. She marries up in her mind and her new husband provides an escape from the family and life she despises. Now he’s gone and she’s bitter and angry. She can’t help but feel abandoned and she’s taking the pain out on everyone around her.

BOTTOM LINE: This is the first work of Welty’s I have ever read, but it won’t be the last. Her writing invokes Laurel’s claustrophobic angst so easily, I felt like I was right there with her.

“For there is hate as well as love, she supposed, in the coming together and continuing of our lives.”

“She was sent to sleep under a velvety cloak of words, richly patterned and stitched with gold, straight out of a fairy tale, while they went reading on into her dreams."

The End of Your Life Book Club

The End of Your Life Book Club
by Will Schwalbe
★★★★☆

From the first pages we learn that Mary Anne Schwalbe is dying of cancer. Her son Will's nonfiction book chronicles this trying time in their lives while also delving into Mary Anne's past. It deals with grief and joy in equal parts, giving a balanced look at one woman's reaction to being diagnosed with a serious illness.

One thing I loved about this book was the focus on life and not death. Yes it is about his mother's struggle with terminal cancer, but it's truly about the life she lived before she was ever diagnosed. She was an incredible woman! She gave herself and her time to so many causes. She started international organizations to help refuge women and children. She raised her own children to be unique and intelligent individuals who take risks in life. She was kind and generous with both her time and her money and she expected a lot from the people around her.
 
I love that reading was such an integral part of Will and his mother's lives that sharing the books they were in the middle of was a natural part of their interaction. As he comments at one point, people always used to discuss what they were reading but nowadays it's safer to ask what people are watching on TV , because they might not be reading anything at all. The Schwalbes take the lessons they get out of different books and apply them to their lives. They discuss them in detail and compare notes about themes and outcomes. When you read about other countries or lifestyles it allows you to live a bigger life. They recognize that and expanded their horizons with each new book they chose.
 
"...books are the most powerful tool in the human arsenal, that reading all kinds of books, in whatever format you choose - electronic (even though that wasn't for her) or printed, or audio - is the grandest entertainment, and also is how you take part in human conversation.”  
Will's description of his childhood was captivating to me. I'm sure some of it can be attributed to seeing things through rose-colored glasses; our memories often become sweeter with the distance of time. But the fact that reading and culture were part of their lives was undeniable. That's not always the case with families, but if I have kids that's how I would want to raise them.
 
BOTTOM LINE: As I've said before, I'm a sucker for books about books. This is one of those, but it's also about living a life worth celebrating and remembering. It's about refusing to lose hope or give up. It's inspiring, but not in a saccharine way. I loved it and have already picked up a few of the books that Will read with his mother.
 
"He was the smartest and best read person any of us have every known, but he wore his learning so lightly and had such curiosity about other people that he had the ability to make everyone around him feel smart and well-read."
 
“Mom had always taught all of us to examine decisions by reversibility--that is, to hedge our bets. When you couldn't decide between two things, she suggested you choose the one that allowed you to change course if necessary. Not the road less traveled but the road with the exit ramp.”
 
"I often forget that other people's stories aren't simply introductions to my own more engaging, more dramatic, more relevant, and better-told tales, but rather ends in themselves, tales I can learn from or repeat or dissect or savor.” 
 

On Grief

So this post might be a bit on the personal side. I don’t do that too often, but this is something I can’t really get off my mind, so bear with me and thanks for your patience.

My Mom passed away when I was 14 years old. She fought a brave battle with Leukemia, but in the end she lost. This week was the 14th anniversary of her death and I’ve really been struggling with that. I realized that from this point on I will have lived longer without her in my life than with her. That fact shocked me and it made me think of all the things I’ll never be able to share with her.

She will never meet my husband or any kids I might one day have.
She will never see my home and meet my dog.
She never saw me graduate from high school or college.
I will never sit with her and talk about life and what we’re reading.
She will never see my byline in a newspaper and tell me she’s proud.
I will never be able to call her and complain about a bad day.
I can’t ask her what her pregnancies were like.
We'll never talk about her memories of growing up, college, meeting my Dad, etc.

I don’t think about these things everyday, but sometimes they overwhelm me. I feel her absence so strongly that it takes me breath away. Grief is such a solitary thing. I love my brother and sister more than I can say, but even though we lost the same woman, we all grieve differently. We can share our memories about her, but in the depth of our grief, we are alone with our thoughts.

Losing someone affects the way you see the world. My biggest fear has never been death it has always been losing another person I love. That terrifies me. My Dad was diagnosed with Lymphoma when I was in high school. He beat the disease, but that experience cemented my fear. I believe that I will see my mom again in heaven, but that doesn’t make missing her any easier.

My Mom was an amazing woman. She was incredibly smart and strong. She taught me to value those qualities in myself and in others from the time I was young. She challenged me to always do my best. She was stubborn and driven and loving. She prepared me for life in so many ways and she is such a big part of who I am. I miss her everyday, but I’m also so grateful for the time I had with her.

Thanks for letting me share that.

Photos of my Mom when she was young and on her wedding day.