BlogHer Book Club: The Book of Jonas

I have a friend who left two days ago to go volunteer at an orphanage - with her neurosurgeon husband - in Ethiopia for two weeks. Again. And they'll go back again, and one day, they'll bring home a baby from there. To me, that is so foreign to my daily life, but yet I have connections there from my friends both now and growing up, as adopting from South Korea was very "popular" where I grew up in Minnesota.

When I had the chance to read The Book of Jonas for this month's BlogHer book club, I jumped at the chance, as it's a view inside the head of a (fictional) young man from an unnamed Middle East country whose village was bombed by US troops. Again, it's something that is so foreign to me, but yet something I want and need to relate to and understand on a human level.

Jonas survived the bombing, but his family perished. He miraculously makes it to a US hospital where he then is sent to the States to live as a refugee. He comes into contact with Rose, the mother of a soldier who is MIA after serving in that same country. The stories of Rose, Christopher, and Jonas are all woven together as Jonas tries to move past the events that killed his family but instead moves down a self-destructive spiral.

The book was so thought-provoking, which was just what I had hoped. The chapters were startlingly short, just one to pages for the most part, but in a way they had to be, given the story being told. In the end, it was a tragedy for all involved - just as so much of life is. The bare bones verbiage tells the story powerfully, although I think it could have done so just as powerfully without interjecting Rose into it. I felt that the author needed a female character and so put her in, but I think I might have enjoyed the book even more had it simply focused on Jonas and - through his diary that Jonas has - Christopher.

The book deals heavily with loss, and that is the topic this week in the BlogHer book club discussion of The Book of Jonas. When faced with tragedy, what is your reaction? Do you hide from it, do you seek atonement, do you search for the truth, or do you have another reaction entirely?

In the interest of full disclosure, I received a copy of "The Book of Jonas" by Stephen Dau for review purposes. This is part of a compensated campaign for the BlogHer Book Club, but all opinions remain my own.

Thank Goodness My Life Isn't *This* Nightmare

I don't consider myself to be a paranoid person. Generally. But there are some things that I have to do a certain way ... for luck. There was a time when I was afraid to let my husband get a v@sectomy, not because I thought there was even the remotest chance that I might want a third child - my two wee ones keep me hopping enough as it is, and I know my personal limits - but because if we made it so that we couldn't have another child, that was inviting something bad to happen to one of our current children. We could never replace a child were something horrible to happen, but the possibility of procreating somehow in my sleep-addled mind kept away the bogey man.

It's silly, isn't it?

But two nights ago I had a nightmare that woke me up at 4:30am and kept me from sleeping the rest of the night. In my dream, I had to euthanize my dad. He was sick and wasn't doing well, and my mom wasn't up to doing it herself. We were all in our "house" (which of course wasn't my actual house, not only because it was spotless) talking about how to do it and how it had to be me. My dad said good-bye to the wee ones, and the plan was for me to drive my parents back to their house for the actual euthanasia. Trying to explain to the wee ones that Grandpa was going to die. And he was going to die tonight was beyond heartbreaking.

When we got to my parents' house, my dad called the wee ones one last time to say good-bye, although I have no idea how we got through any of that. I was the one who had to load the syringe, and I was going to be the one who had to actually do the injection. I was a mess and shaking in my dream. I am grateful only that I woke up before I actually pushed the plunger - and that two days later, this is all the detail of the dream I remember, because I remembered every second of my long and intense dream when I woke up.

As soon as it was decently possible, I called my parents to ensure that my dad was ok. He was. I didn't tell them about my dream. How could I?

That nightmare got me thinking, though. I have no idea how I will someday - and I hope very far away someday - get through the loss of my parents. And more importantly, how will the wee ones? They absolutely adore my parents and they see them and spend time with them constantly. They are so much more a part of their lives than typical grandparents are. They take them to gymnastics and tae kwon do and to laser tag and have them spend the night, not because they have to but because they genuinely want to.

My dad had pneumonia last week that amazingly didn't linger forever and turn into anything worse, as it tends to do with him at least once a year now. Mister Man came home from school last week and announced to me once he'd heard that Grandpa was on the mend, "Of course he is. I prayed for him at church on Wednesday, that's why he got better so fast." That melted my heart, but I know someday all the prayers in the world won't help him get better at all, let alone "so fast" as he did this time.

I have no magic amulets. I have no secret code to keep my parents here and healthy and alive forever. I don't know how I'll survive without them, and I'm eternally grateful that I haven't had to try. My fingers are crossed that I don't have to try for many many many years.

Have you lost your parents? How have you coped with that type of grief and loss?

In the interest of full disclosure, this was part of the From Left To Write book club where we don't write traditional book reviews but instead write posts inspired by the books we read. I received a copy of "Signs of Life" by Natalie Taylor for review purposes only. I received no compensation, and all opinions remain my own.

BlogHer Book Club Review: The Rules Of Inheritance

When I picked up the book Rules of Inheritance, I knew that it was going to be a heavy one, focused on author Claire Bidwell Smith's journey to and through her parents' deaths. I was expecting to cry - and I did at points - but I was also expecting to feel a certain level of distance from it. I haven't experienced the loss of either of my parents, thankfully, and this isn't the first time I've read a book by a blogger turned author. Rarely do bloggers translate well to book format, even when it's an enjoyable blog, in my experience.

This one actually worked well. It wasn't a compilation of her blog writing, walking us through the story one day and month at a time. That is the story we're used to hearing, but Claire Bidwell Smith uses a different tack altogether, one that makes her story far more unique and more powerful. Her story is broken into five stages of grief and walks through her experience. It isn't written chronologically, but her grief and pain are etched painfully on the pages as she shares her parents' diagnoses and subsequent deaths and her handling - or not handling - of them, sometimes in not the healthiest of ways.

As she moves into acceptance, you can really see how these events have shaped her as a person. It's how the events - from her helping her father track his WWII background to moving to NYC with a boyfriend - have turned her into the person she is today. Her grief isn't over, nor will it probably ever be. The novel moves powerfully through this.

Over at BlogHer Book Club, we'll be talking about this book for the next several weeks. Whether you've read the book or not, come join the conversation. This week, we're discussing the events in our lives that have defined us. What have been your defining moments?

In the interest of full disclosure, I received a copy of "The Rules of Inheritance" as part of the BlogHer Book Club. I was compensated for participating in this campaign, but as always, all opinions remain my own.