Before We Were Yours

It is difficult to express in words the absolute whirlwind of thoughts and emotions that have coursed through me as I ventured through this book. I had originally stopped after having only read (actually, listened on Audible) to 3 chapters, because I wasn't intrigued. The story seemed dry and far fetched, it didn't captivate me and it hadn't yet come together. Little did I know that the next chapter would be when my anchor, loose until then, would plunge deep into the sand below, entrancing me in this world.

As I have just finished reading (a mere thirty minutes ago) I'm going to write my unabridged, unedited thoughts as they come, rather than sequentially with the progression of the novel.

This book is a reminder, and actually, serves as evidence of the undeniable realness and existence of the human spirit. Our beliefs alone can allow us enough of a will to survive. To continue surviving. To lose faith when all seems lost would be to voluntarily muffle out the spark that burns within us, begging us to live on, reminding us of love and memories past.

This book shows us that it is not childish to wish for normalcy. It is not childish to attempt to return to a place where things were good, a place we used to call home. It is not childish to assume that there are things in our lives that will remain constant, and that if we were to ever return to them, it is not childish to hope that they would have remained as they were, perfect and unchanged as our memories. It is not childish, either, to wish that people remained as they were when we last saw them, to distance ourselves from "the new" so as to keep "the old" alive. If we do, the old is what's real, and we can deny our present realities. In other words, sometimes, it is okay to live while lingering in the past, instead of making ourselves aware of our present realities. Sometimes, this is our only way to survive.

This is how Rill Foss survives.

It is terrifying to think we'll never be able to say our goodbyes, but it is enlightening to find out that extending a life that was cut short might not end the way we hoped.

When we lose the ones we love, our every fiber of existence goes into preserving the essence of who they were the last time we saw them. We assume that, if we had never lost them, they would be that exact person, unchanged, the one we've held onto in our minds, preserved like a photo.

But, alas, life is change. Life is evolution. Transformation. That person we cling to, long after loss, would have morphed and changed in every additional day they got to spend on earth, had they been given more time. And who is to say the person they changed into would be someone we want to remember? What if a longer life led to circumstances that ruined them, that crippled them? Would it not be better that they led the shorter life, and we could remember them eternally in their prime, as the beautiful soul we knew them to be?

Sometimes, loss is a gift. We are able to cherish the person in the way they should be remembered. Freeze them in time. A complete picture rather than an unknown one. And it isn't a crime to love them and cherish them and allow ourselves to love the ones that still breathe air, simultaneously.

To be loved by others is not to replace the love someone else gave us. It is to allow us to grow into a person whole enough to give others love of our own.

This and more we learn from Rill Foss, in her resolution to return home to Queenie and Briny, whom she firmly believes are waiting for her on the Arcadia. She gets angry with Fern for accepting the love of the Seviers. She is afraid that accepting the love of new parents would be to dishonor the love and realness of their birth parents. It is difficult to imagine how to love and be loved after facing such loss, when we are faced with only the remnants of what remains. The resilience in these girls is gut-wrenching and awe-inspiring. It gives me a reason to breathe.

The parallels of life between priveleged Avery Stafford and Rill Foss (May Crandall) are reminders of the relativity of achievement. Chance and circumstance decide where we end up, more than dedication and hard work ever will. They determine where we grow up, who we meet, what we do. Nobody is more or less deserving of their fate. We each play out the hand we're dealt, and we each venture our own tale for a reason.

Rill Foss is able to survive as the sole care taker of 4 younger siblings, at the mere age of 12 herself, with the stubborn belief in Queenie and Briny's unrelenting love. She has an unquestioning and unwavering awareness that whatever horrors happened, Briny and Queenie were coming to save them. They undoubtedly exist. They are undoubtedly the same as when they last saw them. She has parents. She is loved. She will return to the Arcadia. So strong and resolute are her convictions. She survives. As each member of her family is torn from her, she survives. As she watches her fire-cracker of a sister lose her flame, lose her innocence, she survives. As the lights of her life are muffled and destroyed, she trudges on. She survives. Again and again and again. Though she feels she has died inside, she lives on. As she discovers the truth about her parents, she lives on. As she finds out that returning home means nothing, she

survives. As she discovers her old life will never be her life again. As she discovers that she will never be herself again.

She doesn't surrender. She evolves. She survives.

Where Rill Foss dies, May Crandall survives. May Crandall thrives.

She only knows how to love and protect. And that is what she does until the end. She protects her family, she protects herself, she protects others she doesn't know. She is a warrior in the true sense of the word.

Stories that aren't told die with those whose they were. Without sharing them they cannot help anybody. Without sharing them we cannot learn from them. Without sharing them we cannot come to terms with them.

It is painful, but it is a relieving pain. It is the pain we need if we ever want to heal. If we want to save those we love from suffering a similar fate.

Before We Were Yours shows us that true love is a reverberating, unending, eternal sort of thing. It goes beyond tissues and blood and DNA. It is a God given connection of souls. We knew each other before we were were flesh and bone, and we will continue to be connected long after "what is" becomes "what was". It is incomprehensible. And yet, it is the foundation of who we are. It is perhaps the only real thing that will ever matter. Love will carry us through every trial, through every devastation, through every crippling loss.

It is what gives us the strength to live and try and breathe another day. Because their love lives on. And we can feel it if we live.