But then I came home, made myself a beet salad (As of late I am obsessed with beets and cannot get enough. I ate an entire can tonight alone.) and finished a book I started reading last week, Miracle in the Andes. So what would have been a rambling, weather-related post is turning into a few thoughts on a book. And I do believe that we would all be in agreement that most of the time the world could use a little less weather complaining and a little more book chatter, yes?
In general I tend gravitate more towards fiction than non-fiction so when my book club announced this factual tale of the rugby team who survived a harrowing plane crash in the Andes in the early 1970s as their pick, I was hesitant. I'd already seen Alive, I figured. What else did I need to know?
Of course I should know by now that one of the most wonderful things about partaking in a book club is the fact that it forces you to pick up and read books you never would have chosen on your own. Despite any initial misgivings I almost always find myself enjoying the pick and wondering aloud why I had doubted the read in the first place. Miracle in the Andes is no exception. It is at times an utterly horrifying read - how it could not be given the situation where a group of survivors were trapped in the Andes alone with no food for 72 days? I shivered as I read about the bone-chilling temperatures, feelings of claustrophobia set in as they talked about cramming together in the fuselage to sleep at night, and dealt with the avalanches that came close to smothering them in their sleep. I cringed as I read the accounts of starvation and suffering. The fact that the survivors were eventually forced to turn to cannibalization of other who had not survived the crash when all other food sources had been exhausted made any of my own hunger complaints seem frivolous.
Such a harrowing account might leave some men hardened, angered, or bitter. But that is not the message in Miracle in the Andes, and resentment is the last theme one takes away from the book. Rather than give all of the story away here, I'll simply encourage you to read it for yourself. And I'll leave you with this, one of my favorite passages of the book:
...In my despair, I felt a sharp and sudden longing for the softness of my mother and my sister, and the warm strong embrace of my father. My love for my father swelled in my heart, and I realized that, despite the hopelessness of my situation, the memory of him filled me with joy. It staggered me: The mountains, for all their power, were not stronger than my attachment to my father. They could not crush my ability to love. I felt a moment of calmness and clarity, and in that clarity of mind I discovered a simple, astounding secret: Death has an opposite, but the opposite is not mere living. It is not courage or faith or human will. The opposite of death is love. How had I missed that? How does anyone miss that? Love is our only weapon. Only love can turn mere life into a miracle, and draw precious meaning from suffering and fear. For a brief, magical moment, all my fears lifted, and I knew that I would not let death control me. I would walk through the godforsaken country that separated me from my home with love and hope in my heart. I would walk until I had walked all the life out of me, and when I fell I would die that much closer to my father. These thoughts strengthened me, and with renewed hope I began to search for pathways through the mountains....
-Nando Parrado - Miracle in the Andes
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