Love is never what I think it will be. It's small but spreads wide, surprising me with its contours, its unfamiliarity, its unhurried rhythms. I don't know how I arrived at the conclusion that families are zero-sum. I never interrogated the apocryphal notion that my two families would repel each other like magnets or else collide and decimate me. I just couldn't face the questions, the mixing. The muddiness. But this is what love is.
I just reread this article noticing more how beautifully written it is because I wasn’t rushing to see how it ended. The ending was the only disappointment to me. Who was better than who didn’t seem relevant to what all preceded which was about the unpredictable messiness of love. I didn’t see the author at any point questioning whether her husband were better than she. Good endings are the hardest to get.
You know what I can't stop thinking about?” he said. It was still warm, but the light was taking on the burnished quality of fall and I remember thinking his hair was getting long.
“What?”
“That you're weak for needing to go,” he said. “That your lack of restraint is going to get us killed.”
I have never loved him more than in that moment.
I was like, Holy Shit, it’s on...this is the Lit Stuff.
Then the writer twists the razor-Sharp journey the moment she drops this observation:
My mother, who in FaceTime appeared drawn, her face sunken, looked—as my husband put it as we drove up—diesel. Standing on an incline at the top of the driveway, with her arms crossed, she was tiny but sinewy. Condensed, somehow. We looked up as she planted a sizable, insulated bag of home cooking for our Airbnb quarantine halfway between the garage and our car and then retreated to her side as though it were ransom. She accused me of not feeding my husband properly. Tears slid hotly beneath my mask as the plastic face shield fogged up. We each thought the other utterly helpless.
Moist eyes from this moment through Jessica’s chosen excerpt.
Wild ride thru all the unexpected vagaries of love. Cruelly honest. I may have to read it all again to begin to digest it. I loved following—or trying to follow—how this woman’s mind worked. Can’t get too much more dire than ALS and cancer.
DellwoodBarker, you always having me going to Google! I was not aware of the meaning of “lit stuff.” And now that I know, I treasure it! And, I agree with your assessment.
I am so amazed by this author’s ability to compel me to read her insanely painful story. The proverbial can’t take your eyes off the train wreck. So many layers and all too much to bare.
Great find Jessica! This lingers long after and I love stories like that - very deep, contemplative. Pushes against the edges.
I just reread this article noticing more how beautifully written it is because I wasn’t rushing to see how it ended. The ending was the only disappointment to me. Who was better than who didn’t seem relevant to what all preceded which was about the unpredictable messiness of love. I didn’t see the author at any point questioning whether her husband were better than she. Good endings are the hardest to get.
What a brutally honest and radiantly astute read!
The moment I read this as an early Real Snapshot:
I was like, Holy Shit, it’s on...this is the Lit Stuff.
Then the writer twists the razor-Sharp journey the moment she drops this observation:
Moist eyes from this moment through Jessica’s chosen excerpt.
Solid read.
Wild ride thru all the unexpected vagaries of love. Cruelly honest. I may have to read it all again to begin to digest it. I loved following—or trying to follow—how this woman’s mind worked. Can’t get too much more dire than ALS and cancer.
DellwoodBarker, you always having me going to Google! I was not aware of the meaning of “lit stuff.” And now that I know, I treasure it! And, I agree with your assessment.
I am so amazed by this author’s ability to compel me to read her insanely painful story. The proverbial can’t take your eyes off the train wreck. So many layers and all too much to bare.