2 books-Commonwealth & A Sorrow Shared

 I had Commonwealth by Ann Patchett sitting on my TBR pile for a long time. I finally picked it up to read and really liked it!

Commonwealth spans fifty years.  It's about two families that have their lives turned upside down when the mother of one family left and married the father of the second family.  So then there were four parents and six children trying to work out how their lives together would work.  Fast forward about twenty years and one of the children became involved with a well-known author. After she told him stories about her family, he wrote a book using their stories.  The book became a bestseller and the children (all adults by then), along with the parents had to face just what their lives were and the things that they had done.

It was a very interesting book.  It stayed with me. 

A Sorrow Shared by Henri J.M. Nouwen is actually a combined edition of two short pieces that Fr. Nouwen wrote after the death of his mother. In Memoriam was written shortly after his mother had died in 1978 describes his feelings about being with his father and his siblings as they sat and waited for their mother's death. 

I would guess that most people my age have gone through the journey of their mother's deaths. I did find this book comforting.

"Yet by letting her go, I did not lose her. Rather, I found that she is closer to me than ever."

A Letter of Consolation is a bit longer than Memoriam.  Fr. Nouwen wrote it to his father about six months after the death of Fr. Nouwen's mother.   I would sum it up with:

"Love is stronger than death."