The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World - Laura Imai Messina

 I loved this story, though it was sad, it shows the evolution of grief from different perspectives and the ultimate ability of people to go on.  Yui, a young mother, loses her small daughter and mother during a tsunami.  She travels to the site to a phone booth where those who have lost someone talk to their relatives on the "wind phone" - unconnected but voices are carried on the wind.  She meets Takeshi who has lost his wife to illness and his daughter to silence.  They heal themselves and each other sharing their grief.  A touching, yet uplifting read.

Quotes:

p 36 - "Time may pass, but the memory of the people we've loved doesn't grow old."

p 65 - "There must be an expiration date on the soul like there is on the body."

p 75 - "Yui knew that the strongest kind of love is the kind that is taken for granted."

p 106 - "A famous citation from the American psychotherapist Virginia Satir (1916-1988) reads: 'We need four hugs a day for survival.  We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. And we need twelve hugs a day for growth."

p 111 - ...the things you end up missing most about somebody when they're gone are their flaws: the most ridiculous annoying things."

p 158 - "Anyone who has experience great grief wonders at some point which is more difficult, learning or unlearning ...now she was sure it was the second."

p 223 - "As Yui opened the door onto the dense silence of her house, she concluded that memories were like objects...sooner or later, they always floated back to the surface."

p 260 [Yui on the radio] "You speak to people, but you don't know who's listening to you.  But you come into their home and make them happy anyway. 'I don't know about happy, but they certainly feel like they have some company.' 'Isn't that the same thing?'"

p 364 - "Ultimately, that was what he wished for everyone who came there--that each person would find a place where they could tend to their pain and heal their wounds.  That place would be different for each one of them."

Published: 2021  Read: December 2021  Genre: Fiction