Live and Let Di

Desperate Characters

I promised I would start reviewing books again...I didn't commit to a timetable! And no, the desperate characters are neither my children nor my friends. (Thanks Mom, for pointing out my grammar gaffe!)

My friend Amy suggested reading this book if only for the title. It looked intriguing enough, so I added it to my shelf. This book was first published in 1970 and the culture of that time is definitely reflected in the story, but not so much as to make it distract from its plots and themes.

Otto and Sophie are a childless upper-middle class couple living in New York. Their seemingly perfect life is initially perturbed by something as simple as Sophie getting bit by a stray cat she is feeding. As the story unfolds, you dig deeper and deeper into Sophie's life and see that underneath the seeming perfection are typical aspects of most marriages and friendships. Otto and Sophie seem to struggle, perhaps more than "normal" people, to accept imperfections and dissatisfactions. And all the while, the cat bit grows more swollen and potentially dangerous.

The cat bite becomes a metaphor woven into the story...but not in a way that makes you want to shake the author and say, "I get it already! Stop with the cat bite thing!"

What made this especially interesting for me was that over the weekend I watched Revolutionary Road. Although the movie takes place in 1955, the themes of upper-middle class angst and relationships are probed in ways that left me reeling with questions and thoughts and the strong desire to talk about the movie with lots of people.

While I would not give my coveted 10 stars to Desperate Characters, it weighed in at a solid 7, which makes it worth reading!

Resilience

Did anyone miss me? Is anyone still reading? I've been thinking about coming full circle and refocusing my blog on books. If anyone is still out there...let me know what you think. Regardless of what anyone thinks, here is my first review! (This review is also posted on Triangle Mom2Mom.)

Sometimes a word so perfectly captures a moment, a characteristic or a way of life, that you hang on to it, your brain pushing it out at the exact moment that you need it. It’s never a word you stumble over or search for. “Resilience” was never really that word for me. My word is more likely “Resourceful.” I pride myself on my resourcefulness. My friends seek me out when they need help because I am resourceful. I praise my children when I see them being resourceful and admonish them when they act like being resourceful is too much of a bother.

Elizabeth Edwards, in her most recent book entitled (you’ll never guess) Resilience, has pushed “Resilience” into one of those hallowed (or hollow?) parts of my brain. It is a characteristic that I now understand more thoroughly and something I will more consciously strive for. Edwards’ book is subtitled, “Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life’s Adversities.” But if you are looking for a how-to book on getting over it or moving beyond it, this isn’t the book for you. And as Edwards herself points out, if you are looking for titillating or salacious insight into John Edwards’ highly publicized affair, this is not the book for you.

I met Elizabeth Edwards a few years back at a book-signing at Quail Ridge Books, where she was promoting her book, Saving Graces (the link is to my review of the book on my personal blog). Whatever minimal lingering doubts I had about her sincerity or celebrity were dashed when she walked in wearing brown pants and a kind of frumpy sweater (Mrs. Edwards…if you are reading this, I say “frumpy” in the most loving way!). She didn’t look like the perfectly coiffed and scripted political wife that we have come to expect. She looked like the neighbor with whom you might share books, have a glass of wine, confess the venial sins of motherhood or unabashedly brag about your amazing kids.

Elizabeth Edwards is a woman who has battled, and is still battling, cancer, who has suffered the unfathomable pain of the death of a child and whose personal agony over her husband’s affair was magnified by the fact that millions of people knew about it. Yet, she is not here to tell us what a saint she is. She does not describe herself as heroic. She does not pontificate about how to handle any one of the adversities she has faced. For me, I found her story to be a reassurance that it’s OK not to have all the answers. It’s realistic to handle the same situation with laughter, tears or anger at any given time depending on the situation.

Her resilience is borne of a combination of her own inner-strength and the strength that she has garnered from her family, her friends, innumerable strangers who have reached out to her because of her cancer and even an anonymous on-line support group for parents who have had to bury a child. She is candid about her struggles with faith in the face of a God who would allow her son to die before having a chance to live the full, promising life that lay before him. She is neither perfect nor preachy. She is one of us.

As Moms, our resilience is tested at every stage of the game, including:

•    struggling to conceive;
•    dealing with the aches and pains of pregnancy;
•    counting back to our last good night’s sleep in terms of months;
•    going back to work…or not going back to work;
•    how to discipline;
•    how to keep our marriages a priority while attending to our roles as mothers;
•    how to talk to our kids about subjects that make us uncomfortable; and
•    how to say goodbye to our kids whether it is the first time they ride the bus to Kindergarten, the first time they go off to camp, the first time they drive out of the driveway without you in the car or when they head off to college.

Elizabeth Edwards did not make me feel diminished because some of her particular adversities have been monumental compared to mine. She made me feel like it is the sharing and caring (whether you are on the giving or receiving end) in the face of adversity that is what makes us resilient. Resilience is not something that we either possess or don’t. It’s something that we cultivate and nurture and encourage in one another when we feel it so that we can draw on it when we don’t.

So this Mom gives Elizabeth Edwards’ “Resilience” a big five-star thumbs-up and Elizabeth herself a huge virtual hug of appreciation, support, respect and prayer. You keep going Elizabeth…your battle is our battle and we are right there with you!