There are still more days to travel in this life. And he knows that the man who makes the journey has been shaped by every day and every person along the way. Scars are just another kind of memory.Watching Judge Judy is a guilty pleasure of mine: mostly because I tend to agree with her and like it when she unleashes on the people who have no idea that they're behaving stupidly. However, I have been having a problem lately with how she deals with cases about dogs, and one case, in particular, was shocking to me: A little boy's grandmother had bought him a puppy shortly before she died, and within a few months, the puppy went missing. Within a year, the animal had been tracked to a street not far away from home, now being taken care of by a couple who admitted to having seen and ignored the lost dog posters -- and they refuse to give the dog back. Judge Judy explained to the little boy that although there was no doubt in her mind that this was the same dog he had lost, she didn't think it would be fair to rip it away from its new family. She even brought out her own newest little puppy and asked the boy if he wouldn't like to have the money to buy himself such a sweet little dog. Crying, he said no, he wanted the dog his dead grandmother had bought for him. Judge Judy tutted sympathetically, restated that the defendants had acted horribly and would have to pay, but she just couldn't take the dog away from the family that it had so clearly bonded with. I was really stunned by that decision because, as much as I love my own doggy and can anthropomorphise her reactions into "feelings" and love for me, I wouldn't expect her to have a legal definition beyond that of my "property" and I can't imagine any other "property" that Judge Judy would have treated in the same way. After reading The Light Between Oceans and mentally replacing "dog" with "baby" (a little girl; definitely not "property"), I was left asking myself, "What would Judge Judy do here?"
Some *spoilers* beyond: The Light Between Oceans is set right after WWI in Australia, described as a "swiss cheese" world by the narrator -- the community is full of holes as a generation of young men went away and never came back, and those who did return all had something missing, from limbs to pieces of their minds and souls. Tom Sherbourne is one of the "lucky" returning soldiers who, after a rift with his family and bearing witness to the horrors of war, decides on a solitary life as a lighthouse keeper and is satisfied to receive a posting to the most remote station of all: Janus Rock; a half day's boat ride from the mainland; the last piece of Australia he had seen as a soldier on his way to war. What Tom had not counted on was meeting the love of his life, Isabel, in the few short days he spent in the small community of Point Partageuse prior to taking his posting. As remote as Janus Rock is, a supply boat is sent out every three months and the lighthouse keeper is given shore leave every three years -- and this is sufficient for Tom and Isabel to correspond and decide to marry. As happy as they are together, three miscarriages devastate the couple, and when a boat washes ashore with a dead man and a live baby in it, it is impossible for Isabel not to see it as the merciful hand of God uniting a needy infant (surely her parents must be dead?) with a woman desperate for motherhood. Since she had lost her last baby just two weeks earlier and the foundling was a newborn, Isabel was able to convince Tom that they should pretend she was their own baby -- and despite Tom's misgivings, he signaled the mainland news of the happy birth and buried the dead man on the island. After two blissful years of family bonding on Janus Rock, Tom and Isabel take their daughter on her first shore leave and are stunned to discover that the baby's mother was indeed still alive, living in Point Partageuse, wasting away for want of word of her missing husband and child.
What would Judge Judy do? If the baby, Lucy, was a dog, she would surely make the case that the loving care provided by the Sherbournes -- along with Lucy's obvious bonding with those she believes to be her parents -- is enough to justify not breaking apart the family, even to restore the real mother's sanity. This is the case that Isabel makes, but Tom, having lost his own mother as a boy and still seeking ways to redeem himself after the war that yet haunts him, takes time to convince. In the end, he decides to keep the secret, but to soothe his guilty conscience, Tom leaves Hannah, the baby's real mother, a secret note explaining that while her husband was dead, her daughter was alive and healthy and being well cared for. When they have shore leave for an official function two years later and they can see that Hannah is even worse off, Tom leaves the baby's silver rattle in her mailbox as proof of her rescue. This act leads to the ruse unravelling and Tom is arrested for kidnapping and the possible murder of the baby's father.
The center point of this plot is very interesting -- the author had presented Tom and Isabel as so likeable and deserving of happiness that the reader can nearly be convinced that they are doing the right thing when they take the infant as their own. Not only had the miscarriages been mentally devastating to the couple on the island, but Lucy was also important for the healing of Isabel's own parents, who had lost both of their sons in WWI -- it's important to always remember that this story is taking place in the "swiss cheese" world where everyone had lost family members. So what is justice when every conceivable outcome has devastating results? Who has the real moral claim to the little girl who had no role in where she ended up, but who, by the time she is found, has a clear preference for where she would rather be? Judge Judy is no King Solomon, is rarely called upon to make Solomonic decisions, but each of the mothers offer Solomonic solutions: first Hannah and then Isabel offer to give up their claim to Lucy/Grace for the little girl's sake. The following may be ultimately platitudinous, but there were quite a few interesting ideas explored:
You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things.
Perhaps when it comes to it, no one is just the worst thing they ever did.But, as interesting as the central conflict and some of the writing was, I just wish this book had been better written overall. M. L. Stedman did a beautiful job describing Janus Rock -- the wind and the water and the sky and the stars -- and the preparation for burial that Isabel performed for their stillborn son was truly touching, but many of the other scenes were a bit mawkish and perfunctory. And there were many situations that I just didn't buy: how easy it was to convince Tom to keep the baby; Gwen bringing the little girl to the park (and even trying to convince Hannah to give up her claim!); Isabel's desire to punish the husband who had given her everything. And the worst worst part: early in their courtship, Isabel told Tom of the time she had visited an orphanage and how her heart broke at the sight of all those motherless babies -- why have that scene if you don't want the reader remembering how easy it would have been for this couple to have as many children as they wanted, with official permission? I really didn't love this book but can understand why they're making a movie out of it -- the setting is gorgeous and there will be war flashbacks and period costumes and true joy and melodrama: I do believe with the right direction, this story can be cleaned up into something very special.
A barely related tale: I was playing around with creating a family tree on mundia.com and Ma brought me some photocopies that Dad had hanging around from someone once doing work on his family's genealogy. As I flipped through the pages, the most interesting note I saw was:
Allan Glode (b. 24 May 1794) was adopted as a small child by John and Dorcas Foster of Port Medway. He was lost in the woods when found and would not return home. Later, he used his adoptive surname of Foster.
I wish I had more information on that! If they knew his original surname, did they also know his family? How awful was it at home for a "small child" to run away and refuse to return? Did his parents know that he wanted to live with a new family and said, "Good riddance"? I've said it before and I'll say it again: being related by blood doesn't necessarily make you a family.
Ken was maybe six the first time he packed his hockey bag and regretfully informed me and Kyler that he just couldn't live with our family any more (I wish I could remember how that played out -- did he say goodbye to our parents? Did they lock him in his room or would they have called his bluff? I wonder if he would remember?) I can't help but wonder what his fate would have been if he had been born 200 years earlier -- would he have walked off into the woods and refuse to return home? In the 1700s, and as a son, would that have been a devastating loss of labour or simply, thankfully, one less mouth to feed? So many questions, no answers, so I'll end with some pictures of me and Rudy at the Big Tub lighthouse (to, you know, tie it all together):
