Jordan Book Post 2

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

I loved this book! It took me a while to read, but only because I took every page slowly to get all I could out of it. The end of the book was almost a whole new story for the reader; it was so easy to get involved with. The last few pages grabbed my heart, so these quotes from the end of the book stood out to me. I can relate to all of these quotes. Not only because of the gravity they hold, but because of the life on the other side of them.

" I looked at the row of seashells on the window ledge, knowing how truly they belonged here even though we were in a hundred miles from the ocean" (Kidd 264). 

Lily is the seashell. She ran away from home with her father, T-Ray, to find a home in her mother's traces. The journey and hopes led her to the pink house with the Calendar Sisters. She was far from her home with T-Ray physically and emotionally, so she sought out a true physical and emotional home. Lily found her place at the honey house with August, May, June, Rosaleen, and the bees. She found a place where she felt wanted and belonging. Though miles away from where she last remembers her mother, she ended up finding her mother's beginnings and safe place. This new home became Lily's true home just like it did for her mother. That brought her heart home with her mother, and that was all Lily wanted.

"In a weird way I must have loved my little collection of hurts and wounds. They provide me with some real nice sympathy, with the feeling I was exceptional. I was the girl abandoned by her mother. I was the girl who kneeled on grits. What a special case I was" (Kidd 278). 

Lily had devastating things happen to her: her mother left her, she accidentally shot her mother as a baby, T-Ray was the worst father ever. Lily overcame these things in a long process through running away, meeting the sisters, making honey, and creating her new life. Sometimes in the late, lonely nights, Lily's mind wandered to the questions, pains, and doubts. She thought of her situations often, but she avoided pitying herself except for those notes. She knew she didn't deserve those things, but she also knew she had the willpower to overcome it. The comfort of those pains was minimal, but it assured her that she was, indeed, someone special and someone worth things. She went through the worst of things, but it was those things that made her who she was, that brought her to where she is, that gave her the good life she now had.  

"Not just to love--but to persist in love" (Kidd 289).  

The Calendar Sisters, Rosaleen, and Zach gave Lily persistent love. Rosaleen was Lily's maid and mother and father and friend who stayed with Lily through everything. The Calendar Sisters welcomed Lily, helped Lily, and became her family. Zach showed Lily the butterfly love, the bigger than crush love, the sweetest of friends love. Lily has all these people LOVING her in so many ways. She experienced the greatest brokenness, loss, and pain only to be redeemed with the greatest loves. Every interaction between Lily and these people showed how much love was there; in the discipline, the embraces, and especially the hard times. The persistent love they had is what made this book such a story.