The Fiction Class

I don't read much anymore. That's probably why I'm so excited to have joined a book club. I have to read now. How else will I participate in conversation on the last Thursday of the month?

Tears are streaming down my face. I'm almost finished with a book. A non-book-club book. It's called The Fiction Class. I picked it up at Books A Million months ago. It was $3 in a clearance bin. It looked interesting.

Arabella is a writer. She's teaching a fiction class. Her mom is in a nursing home, close to death. Her relationship with her mom is -- I don't know the word. Hard. But her mom writes a story, and asks Arabella for help with the ending. The story is a breath of truth and forgiveness. Arabella helps her end it. Her mom dies.

I'm not done with the book yet. I have a few more pages to read. But this paragraph made the tears come despite the fact that I fought them:

Death is like having someone lop off a part of your life; not only do you lose the person you love, but you lose everything that goes with her.

I'm thinking about my grandmother. How will I survive her death? Our relationship hasn't been hard. It's been joyous. I love her more than I can say, think, feel, type. I'm scared of losing her, of losing everything that goes with her.

But she's not gone! I can call her. I will call her when Wesley wakes up. She wants to talk to John Wesley about his trip to Turkey. She loves him so.

Life is so hard. It's such a mess of feeling. Sometimes I can barely stand it. There's so much to take in. Do you ever feel this way?

I'm going to go finish my book now.