#mitchalbom

“Scenery without solace is meaningless.”

1. There are no random acts. We are all connected. You can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind.

2. Fairness does not govern life and death. If it did, no good person would ever die young.

3. The human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn’t just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed.

4. Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know.

5. “He guessed it was the right lift but the wrong pair of arms.”

6. “It’s the thinking that gets you killed.”

7. SACRIFICE. Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you’re not really losing it. You’re just passing it on to someone else.

8. “All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.”

9. “All parents damage their children. This was their life together. Neglect. Violence. Silence.”

10. “Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them- a mother’s approval, a father’s nod- are covered by moments of their own accomplishments.”

11. “People don’t die because of loyalty.” “They don’t? Religion? Government? Are we not loyal to such things, sometimes to the death?”

12. Which was worse when left unexplained: a life or a death?

13. “Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from the inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves. Forgive, Edward. Forgive.”

14. No one is born with anger. And when we die, the soul is freed of it. But now, here, in order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did, and why you no longer need to feel it.”

15. “People say they “find” love, as if it were an object hidden by a rock. But love takes many forms, and it is never the same for any man and woman. What people find then is a “certain” love. And Eddie found a certain love with Marguerite, a grateful love, a deep but quiet love, one that he knew, above all else, was irreplaceable.”

16. “Love, like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometimes, under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots, keeping itself alive.”

17. Lost love is still love, Eddie. It takes a different form, that’s all. You can’t see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken, another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it. Life has to end. Love doesn’t.

Oke, novel keluarga emang punya tempat tersendiri di hati, kan? Tapi, di aku pribadi, enggak sampe ngerasa sedih yang sedih banget. Cuma, kayak, apa ya, ngerasa terharu aja gitu terus jadi inget mama sendiri. Ada kalanya aku gak belain Mama, tapi di setiap waktu Mama selalu belain aku.

Baca novel ini jadi reminder juga kalau segala sesuatu itu gak ada yang permanen, jadi plis banget, harus ngemanfaatin waktu yang dipunya sama orang tersayang itu dengan sebaik-baiknya.

Novel Satu Hari Bersamamu ini nyeritain tentang Chick, yang secara misterius bisa kembali menghabiskan waktu bersama ibunya yang sudah tiada. Nah, Chick ini salah satu orang yang emang kurang atau bahkan gak begitu menghargai keberadaan ibunya. Menganggap ibunya akan hidup selamanya. Di hari ibunya pergi dari dunia, Chick ini belum bisa jadi anak berbakti yang sepenuhnya. Malah, dia sempet ngebentak ibunya dan kala itu juga dia berbohong ke ibunya. Jadi, tau kan, perasaan menyesal yang Chick rasakan segede apa?

Habis ibunya meninggal, Chick hidupnya jadi kayak, hancur. Iya, dia jadi suka minum-minum. Kerjanya gak bener. Sampe-sampe istri dan anaknya pergi ninggalin dia. Bahkan, pas anaknya menikah pun, Chick cuma dikasih tau lewat surat, dan itu pun udah lewat beberapa hari dari hari-H. Putus asa banget, lah, dia. Ngerasa jadi ayah paling gagal sedunia. Dia pun memutuskan buat bunuh diri karena, toh, dia gak punya alasan buat lanjut hidup lagi.

Dia pergi ke kampung halamannya dulu, tempat dia menghabiskan masa kecilnya bersama sang Ibu. Nah, pas dia mau bunuh diri, dimulailah kisah satu hari yang bisa ia nikmati lagi bersama sang ibu.

Keren, sih, menurut aku. Cuma, gimana ya, balik lagi, aku gak ngerasa sedih yang sedih banget. Mungkin karena bahasanya juga yang baku banget karena ini novel terjemahan. Aku bahkan butuh waktu seminggu buat namatin novelnya. Yaaa, gitu, deh. Coba kalian baca aja, mungkin bakal punya perspektif yang berbeda? Who knows, right?

Best Regards,

Sometimes in our busy lives, we often forgot to thank someone or acknowledge them, even in a simple way. We breathe, we work, we eat, but unconsciously, we forgot to cherished everything. The things on earth are finite which we hardly perceived. The time and day we lived are unforeseeable. This book is focused on Chick’s story which apprises the word encourages you to live. It is also focused on Chick’s mother, narrating how a mother on the earth will do just to make her family safe in her arms. The purest and greatest love you will ever know, that love from a mother is endless.

We regret the times we don’t have time much left to say the words that we are going to say. The day has come for us to say goodbye. The despair of the loss of the purest person in our lives, I presume, is part of life that gives a reason to nursing our grievances.