I have just returned home from dropping my kids at camp. They are gone for the next four weeks. I am home with the dog, but the house is so silent. I miss them so much. I also am relieved that I have the house to myself for now to try and finally get it cleaned and organized. As parents are dropping their children off, there are so many emotions swirling, you never know what to feel. The first day for me is always the hardest – I miss them, but feel guilty that I don’t miss them enough. It was in this state of mind that I finished Alice Hoffman’s Faithful.
At its core, this is a story of what happens in the blink of an eye. One action sends waves of reactions that are irrevocable and life changing. That is what happens when Shelby crashes the car, and her best friend Helene is damaged beyond repair. Carrying that guilt, Shelby breaks down mentally, and is brought back by the love of her mother and messages sent to her on postcards. These postcards seem to know what she is thinking and feeling. And they help her survive.
If this is what you call surviving. As Shelby learns how to be in the world again, and allows herself to let people into her life, she takes small steps, with Ben Mink, and larger steps, first with stray dogs she “liberates” from a homeless man, then Maravelle and then Maravelle’s children. As each person makes their way into her life, the protective coating she has created begins to wear thin. And she begins to care about other people. When she takes her first steps to choose someone, she makes a mistake with Harper Levy, but learns from this. All along she feels that she gets what she deserves.
As she continues to make a way toward finding herself, she finds a passion, taking care of animals, and commits to it. She comes to peace with her mother, who protected her as best she could during the hardest times, and learned that she was someone’s everything – something she never thought she was worth. And she finds James – the writer of the postcards.
The story is a journey of forgiveness to yourself. While Maravelle and her kids don’t believe she needs that, it is ultimately Teddy who hears her story due to his pain. And while Ben can’t understand the pain, he tried to be there, but never really understood. James, however, lived that pain everyday.
Ultimately what this story told me was that we are our own harshest critic, the least forgiving and the most vicious. If we could be as kind to ourselves as Helene’s father was to Shelby when she came to say goodbye, it would be a must less self-destructive world.
And so, I will not feel badly for being glad my children are in their happy places, even if that is defined as somewhere without me. I will embrace the strength I have given them to know they can venture out safely, that I am always here for them to come home to.
The Source 4 Books 