"A Lesson Before Dying" by Ernest Gaines

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it.” William Styron, American novelist .

I wish I could say I’m a deliberate literate. That I’ve read all the books that educated people say are necessary to be considered educated. But I can’t.

Most of the books I’ve read over the past year have been second-hand. Books in brown paper bags otherwise headed to Goodwill. Books I’ve sought out because their authors were quoted by authors I like. Books loaned to me by friends. Picked up at garage sales.

Someday maybe I’ll be more purposeful. But for now, as with much that happens in my life, I just somehow “end up” reading some incredible books. And for this I’m thankful.
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I set the book down. Deliberately. But unconsciously. I say it was deliberate because I could have kept reading. I had the time. I say unconsciously because I didn’t really recognize what was happening that made me stop reading.

A day or two later, I saw the book where I’d last left it, untouched and reproachful. I realized I’d stopped so near the end for a reason. I didn’t want Jefferson to die.

He was going to. From page one you know that. But, so near the end, with nothing left but the execution, I didn’t want to lose him. By postponing reading, I kept him alive a little longer. Like his teacher, his godmother, and the deputy in the jail, I’d come to love this man. What happened to him mattered to me.

I finished "A Lesson Before Dying" by Ernest Gaines yesterday. And though Jefferson did indeed die, he isn’t dead.

He joins the other literary characters who have shown me the world, worlds that I would otherwise never know. They’ve shown me the hearts of people, the heart of God. I owe so much to them all – to Jean Valjean and the priest, to Epinene, Fantine, Samwise Gamgee, Aslan, Atticus, to Gollum, Anna Karenina, Tess…….

I must be going through menopause because as I was writing this the other night I couldn’t keep writing because remembering these people made me cry. Then I felt guilty because I’ve forgotten so many names and that seemed so treacherous, so shameful. Nor could I remember authors’ names, titles, or even what I’ve read this year, and I went to bed frustrated with my slap-dash approach to life. Looking back on the previous paragraph, I see how sappy it sounds, but I’m leaving it that way. My fellow bookworms will understand.

But back to Jefferson. I don’t want to tell his story here. If you’ve read it, you know already. If not, you should read it fresh, as I did. And be amazed. And pierced. Rebuked. Resurrected.

Every night the local Memphis news shows mug-shots of young, hardened black men accused of committing crimes. I look at these faces on television or the newspaper, and I don’t really see a person. I see someone to despise, to fear, to lock away.

Because I tutor children fathered by men like these, children who have captured my heart, there is a part of me that doesn’t want to feel that way. Because as a Christian I know that every life has value, I don’t want to think that way, live that way.

I know five boys whose mother is on crack; the fathers are dead, the older brothers in jail. For now, the light is still in their eyes. They joke, they laugh, they give hugs, they beam when praised. There’s hope. Because of them I want to see those mug shots differently.

Because of Jefferson I can.