Chick Lit Musings

Abby Jimenez's Life's Too Short was a pleasant shake-up from typical chick lit. I mean, it's totally chick-lit, but not the usual plot. Oh, there's the inevitable disagreement and the inevitable, dramatic reunion, but it was a less irritating version that usually occurs since the stakes are higher. 

There were a couple of quotes that spoke to me: 

 . . . maybe being a father was just like this. Just being there and doing what needed to be done, one small task at a time until they added up to something good.

Most good meaningful things in life are not one-and-dones. Change occurs over time, all part of countless choices that add up to elevation. Isn't that what Rosh HaShana is about? As long as the majority of choices are the right one, they are the ones that matter, not the minority. 

And: 

I wondered how long the ripple effects lasted after someone died. Maybe until everyone who knew them was dead too? Or was it something that went on for generation after generation because the damage was handed down, touching each new person and changing them, even if they didn't know why? 

Something told me it was that one. 

Obviously, that one made me think. Not just in my own case, but regarding my grandparents, who lost a lot more people than I did. Even before the war—Babi's father died when she was four months old, her mother when she was in her 20s. Everyone else lost their own parents as well as siblings and kinfauna. That doesn't even count further relatives and friends.  

A college professor believed that such damage was visited upon the descendants, such as myself. I wonder if that's why I freak out a little whenever Ta or Han don't answer their phones, and believe me, I did that before Ma died (not Han, obviously, but Ma).

It made me think of the story in the Gemara, of the woman who could not stop weeping for the loss of her child, and she was warned to stop. She could not, and eventually all her children died. 

There is grief, yes, which is considered warranted. But is the damage from focusing only on grief? On the inability to see beyond it, to let it overtake any possible joy?

The narrator was contemplating her family's devolvement following a death. But that doesn't have to be the only option. There is a difference between carrying pain and letting it taint all aspects of life. My grandparents experienced happiness following their agonies, some more than others. 

As Jews, we're pretty familiar with pain. But also resilience.