Spark of Light

For some reason... just can't get away from this subject.  I first picked up "Spark of Light" when I grabbed whatever book I can find the day before we left for Tahoe.  Ended up bringing it up and back on the 9 hour round trip.  Never even looked at it until Christmas Day.  Hmm... didn't even realize the irony.  The day we celebrate the BIRTH of Christ...is when I crack open a book on abortion.

Like all of Jodi Picoult's books, she jumps right in and hooks you.  This time, it was a different hook.  So many characters.  So many arcs.  And by the time you get to the second chapter... you soon come to realize, this is a backwards book.  Like Memento... or that famous Seinfeld episode.  This bothered me soooo much... cuz I neglected to remember enough of the previous chapter... and I sorta kinda made me want to re-read it.  But I held out.

"Spark of Light." As Picoult describes it... is the moment a sperm fertilizes an egg.  And the chemical reaction will generate zinc... and also generate... a Spark of Light.  Is that where life begins...at conception? Or does life begin... at the exit of the womb? Or does life begin... whenever State government determines it begins? The author dove deep into the philosophical, religious, legal, and emotional angles.  Heck... she even took us between a woman's legs and inside her uterus, going through an abortion play-by-play, down to every last instrument inside the body, and every last tissue and liquid, coming out of the body. Never have I ever... but now I have.

The book was, strangely enough, centered around 2 dads and their daughters' relationship.  And oddly enough... not once, did I cry.  Me.  The guy who cries over diaper commercials!!  I did not cry... until I got to the Epilogue, when it wasn't even about the story anymore.  Picoult describes the real life doctor she interviewed and fashioned for the book.  And she said, "He chose this work because of his faith - not in spite of it."  At that moment... the waterworks came bursting.