A Gracious Plenty, Sheri Reynolds
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
I have no idea how to explain this story.... I know it made me feel light even within its tragedy, for the tragedy led to redemption. It was flowing and bending, based in this world and the beyond. It speaks of the lies we tell ourselves so that we might get through to the end of our lives in a semblance of peace. It tells of the hypocrisy of "christianity" and the hatred and fear we have of those things we find ugly and cannot/will not understand.
It is the story of Finch Nobles, cemetery keeper, burned & scarred as a child and her relationships with: Leonard the local police officer (a childhood nemesis); Lois Armour and her dead daughter Lucy; Reba Baker, grocery store owner & local christian zealot/hypocrite; and the Dead buried in the graveyard she care takes.
It's a story of pain & healing and life and death. It's a story of philosophy and understanding of life beyond the physical realm.
***************************************************************QUOTES************************************************************
"There's a job for everybody, on any given day. The Dead are generous with their gifts to the living. Unless. of course they are angry, then they call the bees away so that nothing will bloom. When they are angry the Dead catch the rain in their hands, bury it in their pockets, and laugh when the ground cracks"
"Energy is neither created or destroyed"
"'In the living world, there is so much fear and hatred,' She says. 'When we were a part of that world, we held within us that fear and that hate. When we were in the living world, we could not see what they cannot see: the things they hate and fear are around them all the time in the things that they love.'"
"Sometimes something comes along and tears your roots right out of the ground, and that's when you know you've been planted too long."
"Sometimes you been growing one thing in your garden for too many years, and then everything dies. You got to give the soil time to replenish itself."
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Disclaimer/Spoiler: The one page about the attempted mercy killing of a dying cat was not as bad as I believed it to be. In fact, although I had intended to skip that page (I had been forewarned) I read it through....because I had completely forgotten about that part even being in this book until I had read it. Thankfully it was just a natural part of the story and not added as gratuitous violence.
