Not getting over it

I spent most of the last weekend reading Lisa Scottoline's KILLER SMILE, an excellent and engaging read. Don't ask me how I've misssed her books up to now, but believe me, that's an oversight I will be correcting.

There's a scene in KILLER SMILE where the widowed lawyer of one year, Mary Dinunzio, is talking with an even more recently widowed and elderly Mrs. Nyquist, who does not know Mary is also a widow, and the following discussion ensues (with some condensing):

MARY: You must miss your husband
MRS. NYQUIST: Every minute. You know, they say everything happens for a reason, but I'm not sure I believe that anymore.
MARY: Honestly, I never thought that everything happened for a reason. I still don't. It's just something we say to each other to get us over it, whatever it is. The hard part.
MRS. NYQUIST: Maybe . . . The longer I live, the less sure I am of that, too. What do you think? . . . What do you believe in, Mary?

Some may condemn me as a cynic, but I agree with them. I don't think everything happens "for a reason." Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people (or at the very least, some people don't necessarily deserve the good fortune that befalls them). Look at it from a natural disaster point of view. Do you think the tsunami happened for a reason? The tornadoes that swept across Wisconsin this month? What about Hurricane Katrina, which is responsible for at least a hundred deaths and millions left homeless, with nothing to their name?

What about more minor coincidences -- you decide to go to the store on a Friday night instead of your usual Saturday, only to learn the next morning that there was a fire at the bus barn and there is no service that day. Or you miss your usual bus, only to learn later it was involved in an accident -- or like some in the UK last month, bombed? You reschedule a flight and later learn it was involved in a crash, or you take a different route home from work, only to be involved in a carjacking.

NOT that things that happen always affect you in a negative manner -- like oversleeping and arriving at the Farmer's Market late, but just as a favorite stand reduces prices to two for one. Or you find a Snapple truck handing out free beverages after a long trek across the Arlington Bridge in 100-degree weather, your water bottle already emptied and another half mile to your destination. You never play the lottery, but on a whim buy a ticket on your way home for work . . . and win the jackpot (hey, one can dream, right?).

Things don't always happen for a reason, or for a "good" reason at that. One split-second decision can make a world of difference in your life. So yes, I agree with Mary and Mrs. Nyquist. The part that truly struck a chord with me, though, is what Mary says next:

I believe in justice. And in love. And in not getting over it, because that's too much to ask of a human being. Getting over it is the wrong thing to want, anyway. You should never expect to get over it, the best you can hope is to live past it. And you go on. Your past becomes a part of you, you just fold it into the gnocchi dough and keep rolling.

Yes, yes, and Hallelujah!

I do believe in justice, that those who deserve it get their "just desserts" in the end, though sometimes justice doesn't prevail as quickly as we would like, or is served in the fashion we would like.

And I believe in NOT GETTING OVER IT.

To "get over it" is to deny one's emotions and one's past. The past may not be pleasant, may not be all "sunshine and lollipops" the way some people think it should be, but it's part of who you are . . . part of what makes you who you are. The things you experience shape your thoughts, your beliefs, your opinions. Sometimes it may make you seem hard, unfeeling -- cynical, even. It might make you appear over-emotional or, when you feel forced to hide your thoughts and feelings, it might make you appear to be unemotional: uncaring, unfeeling . . . unsympathetic.

Better by far to wear one's feelings out in the open and appear to be human, than hide them away like a robot.

Telling a writer to suppress the past and all it's myriad events and emotions is to deny oneself creative fodder, and can only result in a book lacking in emotion or authenticity.