Purple Reader 2010-07-05
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If you ever decide to read this book, have a box of Kleenex next to you. This book will leave you smiling, while tears of nostalgia stream out of your eyes. This is a story about a family, more specifically about a broken man, how he broke and how he got fixed.
Are you a mama's boy or a daddy's boy? If you knew the answer, then I pity you. No one should choose. Chick Benetto had chosen to be a daddy's boy when he was a kid, and he spent all his life trying to please his old man. Then one day, his daddy left him and his family, and they were left alone. And from then on, he became a mama's boy. His mother was always the soft one, the one that comforted him and nagged him, the one that punished him, and forced him to do his homework. His father was the colder one, the one who didn't show much emotion and didn't seem like he cared about anything. Except baseball.
When Chick went to College his mama's dream was for him to study well and get a degree, and get a job. However, he got into that college with a baseball scholarship, and naturally he played baseball in college. And one day, his dad came out of the blue to one of his games. He watched, and didn't say anything; he came the next game too. Then when they finally did speak, his father asked if Chick would like to go around with him, and at this moment Chick could have hurt him, could have done anything, it was his play, but deep down he was still his daddy's boy. And so he obediently listened. His father told him about a minor league baseball team that might want him. Chick dropped out of school, and he let down his mother to please his father.
His baseball career lasted about six weeks, he got married had a daughter and became a salesman. Time drifted, and he lost contact with his old man. Until his mothers 79th birthday. He didn't call to say happy birthday to his ex-wife though, he called because he wanted Chick back in the game. Chick lied to his mother and family and left to play baseball. His mother died the next day. He didn't get back into the game.
After that, Chick gave his life to alcohol and regret. He regretted going to that game, he regretted so many things. He got divorced, became jobless and when his daughter got married and didn't invite him to the wedding, he lost it. He decided to take his life away.
Then he saw his dead mother, and she taught him many things on that last day. She brought him around their old home, just like another regular day, and she loved him like every other day. This book showed me how easily it is to forget what mothers do for us, all the little things that we may find annoying all the nags and worries that mother's do. In the end, his mother saved him, one last time.
This was a ghost story. A family story. A mothers story. And a son's story.
