Even the Robins Are Acting Differently

Today, I said goodbye to friends I’ve known for years. It’s not the first time we’ve parted company nor the only time they’ve broken my heart and left me lonely as they drifted away. 

I always go through this when I return to a favorite book and finish it again. John Irving’s older books always do this to me. He makes my heartache as no one else can. 

I’ve read The Hotel New Hampshire several times, but this was the first time I listened to the audiobook. It came out this past month, and I’m happy to report that narrator Kirby Heyborne was superb. 

So here I am, once again moving through the wreckage of the Berry family and their three Hotel New Hampshire's. This passage is in one of the book’s last pages: “So we dream on. Thus we invent our lives. We give ourselves a sainted mother, we make our father a hero; and someone’s older brother, and someone’s older sister—they become heroes, too. We invent what we love, and what we fear. There is almost always a brave, lost brother—and a little…