Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Archives for July 2014

When the happily ever after may not be forever: Review of When I Fall in Love by Susan May Warren

Have you met the Christiansen family yet? I’m totally in like with this family created by talented storyteller Susan May Warren. This flawed family of faithful and forgiving people fills my heart. They’re so real. You can call me crazy, but I am love, love, loving these kinds of sibling series that focus in on one sibling’s story in a large family. When I Fall in Love is the third in this family’s story, and so far, it’s my favorite. (Disclaimer: I received a free ecopy of the book from the Tyndale Blog Network in exchange for my review.)

when i fall in loveIn it, we meet Grace Christiansen whose life is all about playing it safe. She’s reluctant to leave her family and the community of Deep Haven for anything resembling adventure. But when her family gifts her with a culinary vacation to Hawaii, she finds herself unable to avoid a life beyond what she’s known, thanks in part to Maxwell Sharpe. Max is a Minnesota hockey player with ties to the Christiansen family. His former teammate Jace is marrying Grace’s older sister Eden, and he was a teammate of the bad boy Christianson brother, Owen. He’s headed to Hawaii, too, for his third culinary vacation: his time to relax and put away his fears for tomorrow. They meet on the plane and Max sets out to show Grace the beauty and wonder of Hawaii while trying to keep emotional distance because of the fate he knows awaits him in life.

Call this book Food Network meets The Fault in Our Stars. Grace and Max bond over cooking and enter a cooking competition as a team. At times, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to keep reading or get myself into the kitchen and cook something myself. It was the best of both worlds for me: reading and cooking. And I appreciated the hard questions Warren tackles in this relationship. Max knows his days on earth are limited, and because of that, he shuts himself off from the possibility of a relationship. He doesn’t think he deserves to fall in love or dream because nothing is guaranteed to last.

And Grace. Oh, how I could relate to her need to live a safe life. Her reluctance to step out in faith and try something new or big or great. There were times in the story when I read the words she was speaking about herself and her abilities and they could have been my words, too.

It’s an age-old question: Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? And Warren answers it beautifully.

You can catch up with the Christiansens in books 1 and 2: Take A Chance on Me and It Had to Be You. And I, for one, will be following this family to the end of the series.

 

Why my kids will never leave me

She squeezes my neck and wraps her legs around my middle.

“I’m going to give you the biggest hug ever,” she says.

The world around us drifts away as all my senses narrow in on this one moment.

“Promise to miss me?” I whisper as I look into her eyes, the tears already pooling in mine.

“I promise.”

She jumps into the car that will take her away for two weeks and waves “bye.” I circle the car to redeem a promised hug from my son and he doesn’t stop talking until I almost squeeze him too hard.

More hugs. More waves. A tearful good-bye in the parking lot of a Ruby Tuesday in Somewhere, Indiana and then they’re off and we’re off and I’m sloppy crying all over the dash of our now quiet, half-empty van.

kids with nana and papa

They were happy and safe, our kids, in the capable hands of their grandparents, and this was not the first time we’d sent them away.

Two weeks without them was cause for both celebration and sorrow.

The tears were a bit of both.

—

She hands the baby and pack of wipes to her husband, who takes both and the hand of their young son and wanders to the video game area while she retreats back to the bathroom.

A move I well remember.

She lingers at the mirror as she washes her hands, checking her reflection, and I can almost hear her thoughts. Maybe this is her first chance to pause all day.

We have done this, traveled with babies, and I remember the exhaustion of changing diapers then taking my break or tag-teaming at the rest stop. I remember desperately and silently pleading that they would sleep for just one hour so we could have a noise break in the car.

The memories pushed forward through time until they were almost happening live as I watched this young family.

My kids were in another car in another state.

But for a moment, I forgot they weren’t with me.

—

My kids will never leave me.

Years ago I would have protested that statement, wanting nothing more than relief from the demands of parenting little ones.

Someday, I thought, they’ll be gone and we’ll have our days to ourselves again.

I believed that because we’ve been parents most of our married years, there would come a day when we would gain a measure of freedom. Parenting is exhausting and the thought that it might NEVER END filled me with dread.

Someday, they’ll leave. It became the mantra that would get me through the toughest days.

I lived for “someday.”

But the truth I’m discovering is both better and worse.

They will never leave because they are imprinted on our lives.

My heart bears their handprints; my soul their footprints and I cannot look at the world around me without thinking of them.

We pass construction equipment and I turn to tell my son, only to remember he’s not there. A train winds through the mountains and I point, ready to announce it before remembering the back seats sit empty.

Even in the silence, my husband and I recite the funny things our kids have said. I hear our daughter’s made-up songs in my head.

Because these two little humans have changed us forever and whether we know them for another day, another decade or nearly a lifetime, we are permanently marked.

I know now why women with grown children still tell the stories of their kids’ childhoods, why the growing up seasons are hard to accept.

I want my kids to grow up, to mature appropriately and become who God intends.

But wanting that does not mean I want to forget or erase the memories.

I want to remember.

—

I wake to a quiet house, well past my normal time to get up.

Husband at work, kids on vacation, and the house is mine for the day.

In half-awake, half-slumber, I’m sure I hear the kids rustling around in their room, certain their giggles fill the hallway as they greet the day.

But no, I remind myself, they’re not here right now.

It’s only the memories.

The house is quiet and empty of people but it’s full of memories.

And I’m beginning to think the best kind of life is the one that remembers.