When I started the walk back to my hotel room, my mother came back in diminutive form to ride on my shoulder for a while. “So much of what you love is everywhere around you,” she said. “But, you know, I always meant to tell you, you need to loosen your laces and let yourself be loved back. And you need to understand that love isn’t just one thing.”
She was right. I am crippled in love relationships by fear, by defense, by doubt, by my own lack of self-regard. It makes me constantly want to abandon ship. I hope that in understanding more about my parents, even though—or perhaps because—they are gone, I’ll learn lessons about faith and endurance and trust and forgiveness. About putting I aside for the sake of we. About how love circles back on itself over and over to create deeper definitions of itself. And I hope I’ll learn the value of that hardest thing of all: seeing it through.
To my sister, Vicki Hansen,
with admiration for her clear-eyed
compassion, and with much love
Acknowledgments
I want to thank Phyllis Florin for her enthusiastic support of this book. Thanks, too, to the many others who read the manuscript and said, “This would help so many people.” I hope it does. Finally, I want to thank my parents for putting up with my efforts during a trying time, and for setting the example of how an extraordinary love works. I see them still.
BY ELIZABETH BERG
I’ll Be Seeing You
The Confession Club
Night of Miracles
The Story of Arthur Truluv
Still Happy
Make Someone Happy
Happy to Be Here
The Dream Lover
Tapestry of Fortunes
Once Upon a Time, There Was You
The Last Time I Saw You
Home Safe
The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted
Dream When You’re Feeling Blue
The Handmaid and the Carpenter
We Are All Welcome Here
The Year of Pleasures
The Art of Mending
Say When
Ordinary Life: Stories
Never Change
Open House
Escaping Into the Open: The Art of Writing True
Until the Real Thing Comes Along
What We Keep
Joy School
The Pull of the Moon
Range of Motion
Talk Before Sleep
Durable Goods
Family Traditions
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ELIZABETH BERG is the author of many bestselling novels, including The Confession Club, Night of Miracles, The Story of Arthur Truluv, Open House (an Oprah’s Book Club selection), Talk Before Sleep, and The Year of Pleasures, as well as the short story collection The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted. Durable Goods and Joy School were selected as ALA Best Books of the Year. She adapted The Pull of the Moon into a play that enjoyed sold-out performances in Chicago and Indianapolis. Berg’s work has been published in thirty-one countries, and three of her novels have been turned into television movies. She is the founder of Writing Matters, a quality reading series dedicated to serving author, audience, and community. She teaches one-day writing workshops and is a popular speaker at venues around the country. Some of her most popular Facebook postings have been collected in Make Someone Happy, Still Happy, and Happy to Be Here. She lives outside Chicago.
elizabeth-berg.net
Facebook.com/​bergbooks
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