Anna Karenina

Today I thought about Virgil--in one of my kindergarten classes over 50 years ago-- I had been reading "One True Thing" by Anne Quindlan in which one of her characters said you could tell "Anne Karenina" was written by a man because a woman would know that a woman might leave her husband for a lover but she would never leave her child. Virgil's mother had left him and he was a very angry child. He said he hated his mother but I have never forgotten the image I have of him holding on to his mother's ankles, trying to make her stay, when she came back for a visit. Evidently there are some mothers who leave their children. Leo Tostoy said in "Anna Karenina" that "every happy family is happy in the same way, but every unhappy family is each unhappy in their own way". I came from a happy family, I think we raised our children in a happy family (I hope my children think so) but I see on television and read in books how much unhappiness there is in the world. I feel such gratitude for always being surrounded by good people, good family, good friends, good roommates in college, good faculty at schools where I taught, terrific husband, good employees in my business, good SBA family I won't forget, and of course, wonderful children and now delightful grandchildren. In today's world, the "happy days" of the 50s cannot be taken for granted and I thank everyone in my life who has contributed so much happiness to me. "Anna Karenina" was a book I really loved and yet didn't read until just a few years ago. I think of the busy times in my life when months would sometimes go by in which I didn't have (or make) time to read. I wonder how many more great books I will discover in my old age...