My firstborn, Julie, is my guiding star in several ways. Her knack for finding a good book for her mother is one of those, and the one I just finished deserves to be passed along to others.
Kristin Hannah’s “The Four Winds” was published this year. Not long after I told my family about my decision to move to Fisher County to write about my grandmother, Julie was adamant I read this novel. After closing the final page, I am moved by Julie’s appreciation for this story, primarily set in the 1930s in the Texas Panhandle and California. She gets it. My daughter knows why this project matters at this particular time in my life, and if that isn’t affirmation, I don’t know what is.
The relationships between mothers and daughters—a running theme in “The Four Winds”—are undeniably impactful. Unfortunately for lead character Elsa and her mother, there was no reconciliation because there had never been a relationship. To her mother, Elsa was weak. Elsa was ugly. Elsa was going to live at home forever, unlike her beautiful sister. As the book plows through the difficult Dust Bowl era, Elsa (who does marry under trying circumstances) and her firstborn Loreda have the more typical bond of doting love, affection, adolescent resentment, and a path back to understanding that is paved with unthinkable experiences in 1930s America.
My mother was born as this decade started, on a dusty farm plowed by mules and worked by my grandparents. Mother was the youngest of six and was raised solely by her mother after Grandfather died unexpectedly--Mom was only three months old. As in Hannah’s novel, the fierce fatigue and loneliness my grandmother experienced affected her parenting with a baby, a toddler and an adolescent.
In the ’50s and ’60s our mother had three daughters. In the ’80s and ’90s, my sisters and had four daughters among us. Throughout our own difficult moments, blown by winds unlike those of the 1930s but just as debilitating, we have discovered that spirit of which Elsa wrote in her journal when she is finally, finally affirmed by her friend Jack and then by her daughter.
Love. In the best of times, it is a dream. In the worst of times, a salvation.
And this—love—gives me courage I need for today.
A warrior believes in an end she can’t see and fights for it. A warrior never gives up. A warrior fights for those weaker than herself.
It sounds like motherhood to me.
“The Four Winds” is historical fiction, but Elsa and women like her abound in my family and probably yours, too. And if we continue to weave with strong threads, our daughters will be warriors, too.
P.S. You will feel the dust coming off the pages as you read. Hannah’s descriptions of the plight of Texans and “Okies” during these years is palpable, even after families arrive in California, where they had hoped for better days. They come to realize that the worst kind of dirt is that which resides inside the hearts of the uncaring and a
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.
