Here We Go

             If we were given a choice to forgive all of the  or die; There would be so many of us lined up to engrave our headstones, buy our polished coffins, to grieve for ourselves. Marching into the day, ready to die needing to feel the wrong and the hate all the way because there is nothing else left. 

          In the very first chapter of The Secret Life of Bees, Lily describes her mother, beginning what will be a forever complex and beautiful theme throughout the novel. Lily suffers tremendous guilt for accidentally killing her mother, and at night she dreams of dying, meeting her mother in heaven, and asking for her forgiveness. Lily has little doubt that her mother will kiss her and forgive her for thousands of years.

          Later in the novel, when August tells Lily about Deborah, her mother, Lily is pained and angry about her mother's abandonment and leaving for another family. Leaving Lily behind, alone, wallowing in her self pity and all the wrongs done against her. She also doesn't want to let go of the romantic pictures she has created of her mother, bathing Lily, feeding her. Lily can't grasp the concept of a nervous breakdown; all she hears is that her mother left her to come to August's Boatwright's. The kind woman who took in lily's mother then Lily, a home miles away from all of the heart-ache in Lily's town. Lily can't stand the idea of  being left behind of not being loved enough. Can anyone, after being left with a cruel bitter father in the depths of South Carolina. She isn't ready to forgive her mother for seeking her own health first and leaving Lily with her father, T. Ray.

          Lily goes back to the honey house and throws jars of honey against the wall, making a huge mess but letting out her anger. And then, Lily cries. She vacillates between being angry at her mother for leaving on the one hand, and better understanding her mother's motives on the other. Lily ponders the idea of why it is so difficult for people to forgive. Why she can't find a little bit of peace with her mother's fate.

          There is someone else Lily must forgive: herself. Lily's first reaction, when August tells her Deborah married T. Ray because she was pregnant with Lily, is that it was all her fault that Deborah was saddled with such a terrible husband. And poor Lily's guilt comes back full force, the hatred she has been desperately suppressing for years of bitterness. Lily tells August her story about how she happened to come to the Boatright house, she explains with tears and sorrow that she loathes herself and is a worthless person who isn't worthy of love. "I'm unloveable".

         And dear August, patient August Boatwright takes her by the hand and tells her that  though whatever terrible things haunt lily, she is the most lovable girl August knows. Before she can become whole and love herself, Lily must forgive herself for killing her mother, and she must understand that this was an accident that she can't go back and fix. She has to go on, realizing she is a human being worthy of love. 

         Lily comes close to forgiving her father at the end of the novel, when she chooses to stay with the Boatrights. She sees what an unhappy man he is and how his pride has been broken by her mother's abandonment. She understands how much he loved her mother and how well he treated her, and although she chooses to stay with the Boatrights, her understanding and care of her father is a first step toward her own forgiveness.

         Lily has a long road to walk before she can love herself and be forgiven. But because she is surrounded with so much love and compassion it will be just a little bit easier. It's still hard, we live, we are misunderstood. We can all make something, do something, understand, forgive; and when there is nothing left to make, to do, to understand, no one to forgive, we die.