Remembering the Good Times
I got rid of two books today. One went into the little free library. It was called Cops, and I’m never going to read it now. It had excerpts of police telling things from their lives, their experiences. Some tense, maybe some funny—after the third mention of children and rape I dropped it.
The other was Remembering the Good Times by Richard Peck. I unpacked it first; I’ve been taking one book at a time from several boxes of books. When I opened the book to see if it was worth keeping, the first page of story fell out. “Well,” I thought, “that tears it. This book is going in the recycling,” and I pulled out Cops to go in the little free library. But I started reading Remembering the Good Times; it hurts my senses to get rid of reading material.
I have a vague notion that Richard Peck might be the author of A Day No Pigs Would Die, one of those books critically praised and therefore encouraged by librarians and school teachers, but a tear-jerker and a real thoughtful book, in the sense of “let’s make people face issues that hurt, in ways that hopefully will lead to perspective.” I knew this, going in, and yet I read the first part of Remembering the Good Times. I read it while walking to the library box and back; I read it at the dining table while my son chatted loudly online, in a Dungeons and Dragons session. I took the book to the piano room and closed the door, put in the last 20 pieces of one jigsaw puzzle, put it away, and got out another puzzle; I read some more. Finally I sat at the dining table again, eating black beans cold from the can, with salsa con queso and tortilla chips. Halfway through the book I knew it would have a suicide, who it would be, and pretty much who would survive. Didn’t happen until almost the last chapter. It had a cathartic scene where, in desperation at not being able to get students to focus, and not having had a local funeral, the school officials hold an after hours meeting, hoping for anything to help. Words are said, blame is cast, others refuse blame, one very old woman says a few words. There’s nothing stunning or outrageous, but it starts the tears.
Our hero and a girl both bawl; others cry. After a time the young man says, “This won’t bring him back.” His father, with his arms around his son, says, “No; this brings you back.” Meaning, I think, that tears bring people together, back from the brink of not knowing what to do with themselves in such pain. It’s a lightning rod, a watershed moment, a tipping point, lancing the boil so healing can begin.
I cried reading it. I went to a funeral viewing myself today, remembering a four year old girl I’ve hardly met, but mostly hugging my friend who is her grandma, and my friend’s grown sons. They need connection at this time, not stress, no platitudes, just connection.
