Kinder than is necessary

"Shall we make a new rule of life ... always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?" from The Little White Bird by J.M. Barrie as quoted in Wonder by R.J. Palacio.

One tremendous bonus I have during this year off is the opportunity to devour books. There never seems to be much time for pleasure reading when caught up in the vortex of life, so I am especially grateful to have time to read AND process stories. While processing, I just had to write about this one:

Just finished the book, Wonder. I have never before read a book where just about every page left me with foggy eyes and a considerable lump in my throat. Despite the dread that portends, it was a fabulous story filled with persevering courage, an abundance of love, and most pleasingly, a profusion of optimism for the kindness and goodness of our fellow humans. As painful as are the circumstances of the main character, Auggie, the story never made me feel as if I couldn't read any more. I believe that is solely a result of the love that is conveyed so realistically and so unremittingly throughout the tale. Auggie's parents and sister embrace him with the type of love most of us will never experience because it is a love born from a cruel and tragic roll of the genetic die. It comes from people who have been bestowed not just with the gift of love for their child and brother but of the raw anguish and instinctual protectiveness that rolls over them anew each time Auggie greets the world. Auggie is born with profound facial malformations which no amount of surgery or reconstruction can reverse. I imagine that few have their love for someone tested as wholly and relentlessly as those who love someone whom others of us may view as "abnormal." This love has a rare depth and complexity that is impossible not to admire. The author, R.J. Palacio, does not preach nor does she make sappy the emotions Auggie and his family experience. Her matter of fact story made my reactions to the cruelty of the universe and of some of the characters in the book feel authentic despite knowing that I could not possibly comprehend what Auggie's struggles meant to him and his family. I felt a wealth of compassion for what every social interaction meant to Auggie, his parents, and his sister even knowing I could not possibly understand the extent of the emotions triggered by these events. Auggie's story is told through different perspectives: his, his sister's, his sister's boyfriend's, and several of his friends'. They all express an intelligence, maturity, and reasonableness that is remarkable as they reveal their own struggles and their involvement with Auggie. Would that we all had that capacity! It was hard not to marvel at the subtlety of the underlying message that helping each other is the most foolproof way through this thing we call life. In the end, kindness trumps any mean spirit that rises in the story. As a witness to this, the head of Auggie's school invokes the quote from above to encourage Auggie's classmates to make this a guiding principle by which they should live. I think we all should embrace it and, by doing so, proliferate it. Super read!