#15

Elizabeth Berg is such a smooth & sentimental writer.   Her work is mixed with hope mixed with love mixed with loss ~ Melancholy.  Never Change (book #15) was not a great 'summer read', but it was a good read.  Heavy topic ~ death.  Heavy topic ~ loneliness.  Heavy topic ~ change.  Berg touches a chord inside of me. Her characters ring true to the loneliness I think we all feel at times {or maybe it's just me}, the connections we need to make, the question...what does MY life mean in the scheme of the whole world?
Quote time:
p34: A young woman I knew who had breast cancer told me that after she was diagnosed, she couldn't go to movies anymore.  She used to love them, but she found that they took her out of herself, and reentry was too hard.  "It's better to just stay aware of it, keep it at a slow boil," she said.  "If you forget, however briefly, it's like you have to deal with the shock of being diagnosed all over again." {I remember when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She said the absolutely hardest thing was saying, out-loud, "I have cancer."}
p46: You never know.  You never know what's going to happen from one day tot he next.  I can vouch for that.  So can Chip.  So could anyone, really.  Oh, it's overwhelming, sometimes, how much we really are all sharing the same, leaky boat.
p133: (talking about signatures in a yearbook)...and telling her to "never change."  As though it were a choice.  As though one of our greatest lessons isn't that change is the only constant.  The seasons tell us, everything in organic life tells us, that there is no holding on; still, we try to do just that.  Sometimes, though, we learn the kind of wisdom that celebrates the open hand.  Then we know that letting go of everything is the only way to keep the things that matter most.
Like I said, not a good summer read.  Serious.  Left me in kind of a funk at the end...asking myself, "What would I do?"
fl:The Tuesday before it happened was a perfect summer day.  ll: I get up, dust off my jeans, and call Frank. It's time to go home and get ready.