700 Sundays Book Review

I like to journal and, when I do, I imagine my daughter reading my words someday.  Maybe I'll pass on wisdom that she doesn't want to hear right now.  Maybe she'll see how intensely I loved her when she reads my entries 40 years from now.  I love to read the wisdom of other people, how they record their thoughts.  Sometimes I write down passages that move me.

I just completed Billy Crystal's memoir 700 Sundays.  I enjoy Billy Crystal, but, until I read this book, he was just an entertainer to me.  Now that I've read 700 Sundays, he will never be just an entertainer to me again.  He describes the love of his family as he relates the bittersweet mile markers in his life.

Here is a passage that made me cry.  While I am often moved by good writing, I almost never cry.  I cried with the wisdom and love in this passage.

From 700 Sundays...

     We're sitting at a table.  I'm sitting across from "Him," and there are five cards spread in front of me.
     I pick up the first. . ."Maybe five foot seven?"  Oh, come on.
     I turn over the second. . ."Lose your father when you're fifteen."  Can I get another card?
     My third card. . ."Have your mother her entire life."
     And the fourth. . ."Marry an incredible woman, have two beautiful daughters, and now your first granddaughter."
     The last one. . ."Get to do what you've always wanted to do since you first made them laugh in the living room."
     I hold the cards in my hand.  He stares me down.  I look at them one more time, but I don't really have to.  "I'm going to stick, and I'm going to raise you everything I have.  What do you got?"  I stare at him with confidence, waiting for God to make his move.  He stares back.   I smile.  He folds. . .He can't beat me.



Then my tears started.