Home Safe

Elizabeth Berg is one of my favorite authors, and I have been looking forward to reading her latest novel since Cindy wrote a post where she mentions Home Safe. I waited for it to come out in paperback, and then I paced myself so I could savor the words on the page for as long as possible.

I finished the book last night. I didn't want it to end and knew at her last word that I would soon return to read it again. In the main character, Helen, Berg artfully captures the transitions of a woman in mid-life. I felt that from early on in the book; the paragraph that begins at the bottom of page 236 leads me to believe that Elizabeth Berg knows that of which she writes:

"On a few occasions in her life, Helen has felt deep happiness as a kind of pain. The day she married Dan. The day Tessa was born. Now comes another such time. She sits down and puts her hand to her chest and rocks. Thinks of all she has lost and will lose. All she has had and will have. It seems to her that life is like gathering berries into an apron with a hole. Why do we keep on? Because the berries are beautiful, and we must eat to survive. We catch what we can. We walk past what we lose for the promise of more, just ahead."

I love that, the promise of more just ahead. What better reason to keep walking?