“You know this feeling, don’t you?” Something inside of me turned fierce. “How you laugh that way. Why you love us all. This is what you live by, isn’t it?” … Pain and sorrow never end. Nothing we do is enough. It’s always been this way. “But joy,” I whispered to Irwin. “This joy. It’s boundless too, and endless. So hold on. This isn’t theirs to knock out of you. It’s not yours to lose. It’s not mine either. But it’s making the trip. It’s coming. So please. Just hold on.” – The Brothers K David James Duncan
I just finished this book. I’m not going to give you too much context behind this quote but just know that it comes from a place in the book where the narrator (Kade) is sitting in the bathroom whispering a conversation to his brother Irwin.
One of my seminary friends suggested that I read this book at the beginning of the summer. He leant it to me promising me that I would love it. And I’ll be really honest … I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. But I decided to give it a try and low and behold – I loved it.
While I’ve been reading, I have had several people ask me what the book is about. I have a hard time responding. Sometimes I say it’s about a family of boys and baseball. Other times I just say it’s about baseball. Still other times I say it’s a coming of age story set in the 60s in the midst of the Vietnam war. Still other times I’ve said it’s about a family coming to terms with growing up and growing apart. It wasn’t until I read the last words of the book that I realized just what the book was about –
It’s about life. It’s about love, heartbreak, growing up, values, faith, family. It’s about the life of a family. A family with four boys, two girls and two parents. A family with varying faith stories. A family who fought and loved.
It’s a beautiful story of a family’s life.
You should probably run out and get yourself a copy and read it. Although only if you like completely genuine stories that struggle through big life questions in one chapter and then make you spit water out your nose in the next because of the completely realistic brotherly fights.