So far this book has me laughing out loud one moment and practiclly sobbing the next. SO.GOOD!

For me the theme of this book could be summed up with the verse from Micha she had read at her bat mitzvah: "And what does the Lord require of you, but do jutice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

Her thoughts on air travel I compeltely identified with: My idea of everything going smoothly on an airplane is (a) that I not die in a slow-motion fiery crash or get stabbed to death by terrorists and (b) that none of the other passengers try to talk to me. All conversation should end at the moment the wheels leave the ground.

A lot of this book discussed her dealings with grief. It is a hard topic and a lot of people shy away from discussing grief or even experiencing their grief:

All those years I fell for the great palace lie that grief should be gotten over as quickly as possible and as private. But what I’ve discovered since is that the lifelong fear of grief keeps us in a barren, isolated place and that only grieving can heal grief; the passage of time will lessen the acuteness, but time alone, without the direct experience of grief, will not heal it.

Don’t get me wrong: grief sucks; it really does. Unfortunately , though, avoiding it robs us of life, of the now, of a sense of living spirit.

I really identified with her as a mom. She had a bad moment with her son, totally flipping out on him over something so inconsequential and the remorse she felt afterwards was so acute:

I did what all good parents do: calmed down enough to go apologize, and beg for his forgiveness while simultaneously expressing a deep concern about his disappointing character. He said I was the meanest person on earth next to Darth Vader.

That’s one of the gifts kids give you, because after you have a child, things come out much less orderly and rational than they did before. It’s so utterly bizarre to stare into the face of one of these tiny perfect beings and to understand that you (or someone a lot like you) grew them after a sweaty bout of sex. And then, weighing in at the approximate poundage of a medium honeydew melon, they proceed to wedge open your heart. (Also, they help you see that you are as mad as a hatter, capable of violence just because Alvin and the Chipmunks are singing when you are trying to have a nice spiritual moment thinking about ashes.)