Home to Big Stone Gap Book

I finished the last book of the series and now I am very depressed, like on the day after Christmas when all that's left is the clean-up. I don't know if I'd have liked this book as much if I read it first without becoming acquainted with the characters and all their lovely human flaws in the previous stories. I always like books in which the characters are flawed and the message is acceptance. I think we just bumble through this imperfect life trying to do the best we can and then learn to see the remaining flaws, that are scarred into us too deeply for changing, as our personality. Covering them is deceit and life has taught me the fruits of deceit are never worth the efforts of cultivating them, and how odd we would be if we did achieve perfection! We are here to love and be loved; we are not broken machines to be fixed or discarded. We must try to overcome our faults as best we can, but many are just part of us that we can adjust, somewhat, but never really change--none of us will ever make ourselves perfect, and we can't get a personality transplant. I fell in love with Jack Mac when he talked about deciding to accept (before proposing, thank goodness) Ave Maria's faults, sadness, worries, and emotional scar tissue as just part of the packaged deal--you either take it or leave it. I do not want another book since I am about the same age as the characters and know that there isn't much left except to start killing them off, and this book ends at a very satisfying time of life--when you achieve some degree of imperfect comfort within your own skin. I am just going to wait awhile and re-read the whole series start to finish. I think these are books we will understand and love even more as we get older. I have a hard time now, burying so many friends--but I do hope I have learned to make them feel loved, accepted, no, appreciated for their total packaged deal. I guess I found that true love is loving warts and scars. I'd like to leave Ave, Jack, Iva, Theodore, and Pete at that really good place.