Beyond Books

Reality hits you like a freight train sometimes, and it's being able to see through to the end of the recovery processes that sometimes is the most difficult. When will this be over? When will my luck change? When will my children stop suffering so?

We are reading Lovely Bones this month by Alice Sebold. The author created a touching story about a death of a young girl and the effects that it has on her family and friends over the years. It takes place in a time when suburban communities were on the rise. The cookie cutter houses and sterile neighborhood tracks paint a vanilla appearance on the secret lives of the husbands, wives, and children that live behind their color approved doors.

Like the suburban neighborhoods in Lovely Bones, living out some of life's most difficult experiences and tragedies in quiet desperation is the reality of South Orange County's situation during these tough economic times. South OC has become the antithesis to our rough inner cities.

It is also within our own nicely lined liquid-amber streets of Rancho Santa Margarita that we come to discover that life's hardships holds back no prejudices. In between smiles at the park and a friendly wave to a passerby that our neighbors and schoolmates are dodging the day when they may lose their homes. Mothers and fathers equally losing sleep, wondering when their next meal will make its way to the dinner table for their children, ever needing, ever growing.

Fortunate are we who have family to come to our rescue when things get a bit tight. But what about those who don't have this blessing? If they could be called our neighbor but not our family, then perhaps it is up to those of us, few or plenty, to take on this fostering role, like Grandma Lynn or Ruana Singh who were able to step into these nurturing roles during the Salmon family's difficult years following the death of Susie Salmon.

Names and faces are interchangeable and our roles are ever changing. Perhaps love is the only constant- the one thing that we can rely on when we stand on either side of the line, one hand extending in love, the other in gratitude- even when the love comes from an inebriated individual such as the case with Grandma Lynn.

And food can be a loving gesture between two people.  Between strangers or close friends, it's a guaranteed door opener.   Whether it's the devastating loss of a loved one or to a very lesser extent, the loss of a family's source of income, our life situation is our personal reality that can drag each of us deep into our darkest moments.  But the sharing of food like Ruana's apple pies or a meal for a suffering family can be like a warm blanket on a stormy day.  It doesn't deny the reality but it can lure us out of the storm and shelter us from it's effects temporarily.  And hopefully it's the love that will break apart the heavy clouds and bring some sunshine back into our lives.