The Middle Place - Read and Ready

I've been meaning to post about this book for a while now. A long while. I keep carrying it with me, back and forth to work, hoping to find a few minutes to write down my thoughts.

Lisa sent this one to me. She reviewed it on her other blog.

I enjoyed it. Yes, cancer was a central theme and I learned a lot about how it can affect a family and I truly felt for this mom with her loving husband and really young daughters, but what jumped out at me and had me in tears at times was the relationship between the author and her father.

See, I didn't have that kid of relationship with my dad. Still don't. I envied that they called each other on the phone and that he came and visited her, even while in the midst of battling this horrible disease. I would just sit back while reading and go, "Wow. That really happens, huh?"

In one part, the author, Kelly Corrigan, is surprised by this huge engagement party. What she does upon entering the room gave me chills:

I started to make out some of the faces in the barely lit room...Then a voice came shooting clear at me through the noise and the dark and I ran straight into Greenie [her father], and we rocked back and forth just laughing while the people around us held their hearts and wiped their eyes. Even my mom, who was as happy as I had ever seen her, waited patiently while Greenie held me to him and said, " I knew he was out there, Lovey. A man who loves you as much as I do. I told you we'd find him."

Heart. Breaking.

I mean, really.

The end threw me for a loop though. Possibly jealousy on my part, but I didn't see it coming.

If you'd like to read this book and see for yourself, let me know and I'll put it in the mail right away.