Happiness isn’t possible without peace and peace isn’t possible without practicing forgiveness. In Olive Branches Don’t Grow On Trees, Silvia, in an attempt to help her brother Vince come to peace with their father, tells him the essence of a lesson she learned from Grandma Tucci. Her grandmother told her to remember a kind deed performed for her by the person with whom she’s angry. In this instance, Silvia was angry at her mother and so she recalled the beautiful Bonsai tree she had given her one year, knowing how badly she wanted such a plant. Remembering this kind deed helped her greatly to forgive her mother and feel peace towards her.
Silvia also learns that often times, a persons wrongdoings come from a place of pain. In one scene, she starts to feel anger towards him but then, remembers a dream she had in which he was a baby crying for his mother who was never there for him. This dream helps her to recognize his pain and have compassion for him, instead of anger. Similarly, Cosmo, in Discovery of an Eagle, realizes that Frank, the Greco patriarch, is just like all of us, doing the best he can. He is not always the best father and indeed, his failings come from a place of pain as manifested in his severe alcoholism–something he practices to take him out of his pain. The patriarch of the Tucci family in my forthcoming novel, The Bird that Sang in Color, is very similar to Frank in his shortcomings as a father and the fact that his bad parenting is a result of his inner pain.
This post is from my blog series, âFiction Books about Happiness.â The theme of happiness runs throughout all of my novels, including Olive Branches Donât Grow on Trees, Discovery of an Eagle, and The Bird that Sang in Color. These books are available from all major online book sellers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple Books.
