While posting about A Death In The Family, I’ve briefly mentioned a few times how this novel really hits home.
Here’s why. I’m 37. I’m married. I have a three-year-old son and my wife is due in September with another little boy.
In the story, Jay Follet, the young father who dies, is 36. He has a six-year-old son, Rufus, and a younger daughter, Catherine.
He leaves behind his wife, Mary, and their two young children.
I think you can understand why this book gets to me. I’ll explain more after this passage.
Here’s the setup.
Aunt Hannah is talking to Jay’s two children, attempting to explain that their father won’t be coming home.
“What is it, Catherine?”
“When’s Daddy coming home?”
“Catherine, he can’t come home,” she said very kindly. “That’s just what all this means, child.” She put her hand over Catherine’s hand and Rufus could see that her chin was trembling. “He died, Catherine,” she said. “That’s what your mother means. God put him to sleep and took him, took his soul away with Him. So he can’t come home…” …
“Do you see, child?” Catherine was looking at her very seriously. “Of course you don’t, God bless you”; she squeezed her hand. “Don’t every try too hard to understand, child. Just try to understand it’s so. He’d come if he could but he simply can’t because God wants him with Him. That’s all.” She kept her hand over Catherine’s a little while more, while Rufus realized much more clearly than before that he really could not and would not come home again: because of God.
“He would if he could but he can’t,” Catherine finally said, remembering a joking phrase of her mother’s.
Hannah, who knew the joking phrase too, was startled, but quickly realized that the child meant it in earnest. “That’s it,” she said gratefully.
But he’ll come once more, anyway, Rufus realized, looking forward to it. Even if he is asleep.
“What was it you wanted to ask, Rufus?” he heard his aunt say.
He tried to remember and remembered. “What’s kuh, kuhkush, kih…?”
“Con-cus-sion, Rufus. Concus-sion of the brain. That’s the doctor’s name for what happened. It means, it’s as if the brain were hit very hard and suddenly, and joggled loose. The instant that happens, your father was—he…”
“Instantly killed.”
She nodded.
“Then that was that, that put him to sleep.”
“Hyess.”
“Not God.”
Catherine looked at him, bewildered.
Man, I can’t imagine having that conversation with young children, and I pray that my wife nor I will never have to.
You can’t truly appreciate that passage out of context, plus I cut a few parts due to length. There’s a lot going on there, including some religious undertones that are important to the plot.
That passage, and just the thought of that conversation—the pure innocence of those two children—brought me to tears. The backstory includes episodes in which the little boy, Rufus, gets bullied by neighborhood children, making the emotion of losing his father—a man he could trust and run to—even more painful.
As a father, this one really hits home.
Crap. I’m depressed now. This truly is one of the most depressing novels on the list, and that’s saying something.
Can we talk about puppies now?
