What secret asian girl is Reading

 Mysteries of Love and Grief
by 
Sandra Scofield

"Frieda is one of a legion: women who have stood at graves and at the doors of empty houses and seen a sea of empty prospects." Not exactly a cheery description to entice readers. Nevertheless, an honest and forthright start to this author's often confusing relationship with her grandmother and the woman who stood between them. It is a stormy relationship; a triumvirate of three generations of headstrong women. Frieda, born in 1906 in Oklahoma, her daughter Edith, and her granddaughter, Sandra, the author. Much of each of their personas are shaped by their circumstances, either by the depression, war, men, poverty, abandonment and sometimes ambivalent pregnancies. But the true parallels in these women's lives are too similar to blame it on just genetics. The anger at each other for irresponsible and often irrepressible behavior is bounced back off their own tendencies and much of the book is a diary-like examination of trying to understand why they don't get along. I'm not certain if the author ever understood that history tends to repeat itself if the cause is never reckoned with. And children mimic parents. Self-respect, it seems, is a learned behavior.

Frieda, a child of abandonment, grows up in a time where women didn't have many choices. She survives, although not without the scars of bad decisions and  buckled by the ghosts of her past. Bad choices, bad husbands and domestic abuse all contribute to her having to pick herself up over and over. It also toughens her resolve to give a better life to her children: Edith, Eula May and Sonny. It also affects her attitudes toward men. "Why kill a man? Let God take care of them. Let them burn in hell." Not exactly the words of a woman in a loving relationship. Her daughter, Edith, fares no better in the marriage department, but her dream-like appearance attracts plenty of suitors which she cannot bring herself to truly love. The author realizes that she is the result of one of these dalliances and begins to doubt her confidence in her mother's ability to care for her, and more importantly, herself. Edith is self-centered. "If there was one orange, Edith would eat it." Sandra goes to live with Frieda but never seems to be able to figure out the hostility between the two older women. She connects to her grandmother as she never could with her mother. Frieda's promises, "I will never complain, I will never ask, "Why me?," I will take care of those I love," become meaningful. As Sandra grows into womanhood herself, she experiences some of the same strife her mother and grandmother did. Like her mother and grandmother before her, she feels the stirrings of rebellion and the need to break away from her family and figure herself out.

The copy of this book that I read was an unedited, advanced reader copy. I hope that the final version is more organized and edited because I found myself lost many times in the timeline. I made a copy of the family tree so I wouldn't get lost but the narrative jumps back and forth, especially regarding Frieda's death in 1983. There's a lot of confusion in the storytelling but there are also pockets of brilliant wisdom and great writing. The description of Frieda's final days was a perfect, ordered way to end a life: in your own home, with all your good-byes said, no loose ends. She wanted no visitors and no mourners. Frieda eventually stopped eating, Sandra says. "Nothing in her needed feeding." I can't think of a better way to come to an end.

If you're a mother, a daughter or a granddaughter you will immediately recognize the coarse strings that hold these women together. They bind us even while we do our best to cut them, stretch them to their limits and even gnaw at them with our teeth to escape. It is only after one of them inexplicably falls free that we feel the terrifying vacuum of their absence, the slackness of the support that once held us up. At least, that is, until we recognize their all too familiar presence lurking within ourselves.


BUY LINKS:

AMAZON - http://www.amazon.com/Mysteries-Love-Grief-Reflections-Plainswomans/dp/0896729419
B&N - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mysteries-of-love-and-grief-sandra-scofield/1121203505?ean=9780896729414
Texas Tech Press - http://ttupress.org/books/mysteries-of-love-and-grief