After finishing this book this afternoon, I felt a bit like Forrest Gump. You remember the part in the movie...he starts running and can't stop, yet he can't quite remember why he was running in the first place, but then all of a sudden he stops and never feels the need to run anymore. I won't go so far as to say that I won't ever read again, but I suddenly feel as though I have read what I needed to read and don't feel particularly compelled to read anything new. Home Front must've opened, and closed, something within me and I am still trying to figure out what it is, or was.
Home Front centers its plot around the war in Iraq. It's not so much a book about the war itself, but a book about the people who are directly involved: the soldiers who leave home to fight and the people these soldiers leave behind. In an interesting twist, the main character is a female fighter pilot, a lady who has spent her life trying to find her place, trying to find a "family." Typically in times of war we think of the men who leave to fight and the women and children they leave behind, but Home Front turns that all around. The men are the ones left behind, and are the ones who have never had to handle the house and the kids, and their lives quickly crumble under the pressure.
There are so many aspects of this book that I loved. First, the idea that it is the women who leave and the men have to pick up the pieces. I love this twist on the typical. I think it's something most moms think about often: could our husbands handle life if we weren't here to do it all? Kristin Hannah paints a picture that, I think, fairly accurately shows what would happen to our families both immediately (everything falls apart) and over time (the men learn what to do and how to do it).
Second, I love the literary techniques Hannah uses to tell the story. She could just tell it. She could use dialogue and we could all follow along, but instead, she tells much of the story through letters and journals. In this way, we can glimpse the personal in a way that dialogue can't convey. Letters and journals are intensely personal. Read them with tissues...you'll need them.
Third, I thought the parallel, yet intersecting, stories of Jolene and Keith were brilliantly created and told. That's all I am going to say because I don't want to ruin anything for anyone.
On a more personal note, and in reference to my Forest Gump analogy, I think this book touched me in some extremely personal ways. (Note: if you aren't into reading the personal details about my life, stop reading here and just go buy Home Front and start reading that instead). The first time the tears started to flow was when I realized that Jolene was going to have to say goodbye to her girls, possibly forever. How do you do that? How does a person tell a 4 year old and a 12 year old goodbye? My worst fear was realized at that moment. I am fearful of many things, but as I was reading I suddenly stumbled upon my worst fear of all--leaving my girls behind. I don't want to say goodbye to them ever. But especially not now. It's why I cry for days before and after a mammogram, why I worry about flying, and driving over bridges...all of my seemingly irrational fears come back to this one: I need to be here for my girls. Which led me to ask myself--well...what if you can't be? How are you going to handle it? Will you be like Jo and just do it? Will you write the goodbye letters and make a notebook for Rob to follow so that he knows everything about everything, or will you crawl up into a ball and cry it out? Honestly, I hope I never have to find out, but I will say this. I don't think that I am strong enough to handle leaving my girls. My mother always said that God doesn't give you more than you can handle. I have lost my dad, my cousin who was like a brother, and my favorite grandmother. I can apparently handle a lot, but please, Lord, do not let me every have to say goodbye to my girls before I have lived to see them grown and self-sufficient. I would crumble, I just know it.
The next issue Home Front made me confront head on was how I would handle Rob telling me that he didn't love me anymore. Well...sadly, I came to the conclusion that I could handle this. I guess I'd have to. If someone doesn't love you, they don't love you and if my girls were involved I'd have to move on because of them. I wouldn't like it, but I'd do it. Eventually. In the case of Jolene, though, things get more complicated and while I'd like to comment further, I will spoil the book if I do, so I'll stop.
It wasn't until I had almost finished the book that I realized that Home Front, as much as it is about war, is about family. It's about the family that gets left behind. In this case, it's the family that gets left behind because of war, but the ideas presented could apply to any situation where families are separated. It was then that I realized that all of those irrational fears that I have come back to one thing, to that one greatest fear of all: leaving my girls. I don't want my girls spending their lives trying to piece together the puzzle of me and who I was and what I was like. I don't want my girls to feel the hurt and the frustration of losing a parent. It would be my greatest failure as a mother. It would, perhaps, be something out of my control, but in that moment, I would've failed them. I don't want someone to tell them stories of who I was and what I was like. I don't want them to read journals (or blogs) to try to piece together what I thought about things. It's too hard. I know. I have spent my entire life doing it as I tried to learn about my dad. I don't want that for them.
So, today I realized some things about me, for better or for worse. I guess that's why I don't feel the need to start a new book in a few minutes when I post this blog and head to bed. Books, for me, are more than entertainment. I spent four years of college reading books and stories and poems that taught me to about life, about history, and about human emotions. Books are pathways to bigger and greater ideas. Home Front made me examine my life in a new way today. It reminded me of things that I value and hold dear and it made me confront a fear that I really never realized I had (or maybe that all of my little fears just led to one big one). It also made me see for the first time that I really do live every day not as someone's daughter or sister or wife or teacher, but as two someone's mothers. Those two girls make me who I am. Every choice, every action, every decision I make, I do so with those girls in mind. I want them to know me, to be proud of me, and to live their lives knowing how much their mother loved them. I don't want them to ever question or doubt. If they do, I haven't done my job as their mother. (And, the tears are flowing again...)
Home Front....could this be the #1 for 2012?
Happy Reading!
:) Dodie
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