Did Sally tell me to read The Lovely Bones?

As I walked to work yesterday morning, anxious to get some last-chance August sun on my skin, I couldn’t shake away a thought: Sally wanted me to read The Lovely Bones.

I picked the book off my shelf a week ago. It had been on the Banned Book List, a group of books my college roommates told me not to read after my mom died. It made sense at the time, since it’s about a girl who is murdered and watches her family from heaven. But now, 7 years later, I felt ready for it. Since starting, I haven’t been able to put it down. On subway rides I am unaware of anything around me, completely engrossed in the pages. In sleep, a murderer haunts my dreams and I try to fight him off with punches and persuasion.

For the past 2 weeks, I’ve tried to ignore August. I’ve tried to focus on what’s good: my new apartment with Mark, the warm weather that finally arrived after a rainy June and July, the prospect of being a professor in the fall. I’ve tried to say it’s just another month, even though it’s the month my mother died. But The Lovely Bones will not let August rest.

In the book, Susie (the girl who was murdered) goes to some kind of afterlife and soon discovers that unless she stops watching her family on Earth, they will continue to be obsessed with her death and finding her murderer. Likewise, she will never reach heaven.


Especially since it’s August, and 7 years since my mom died, it makes me wonder about where my family is and where my mom is. Is writing this blog keeping her from reaching heaven? Do I need to cut the strings and let her go, let me go?

Maybe Sally nudged me to pick the book off the shelf. Nothing in August is ever pure coincidence. And even though it’s 7 years later, maybe I’m still not equipped to read books like this.

The 19th of August, the anniversary of when she died, is approaching fast. I could use your advice.