When Bad Things Happen to Good People and
When Good People Do Bad Things
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Making it Home is a compelling memoir by Teresa Strasser, a comedic journalist and author with a long list of accomplishments on IMDB for acting, directing, and producing. Folks in Arizona know her as a co-host of CW7’s Arizona Daily Mix. And then there is the fact that she is an Emmy-winning writer for her work on Comedy Central’s Win Ben Stein’s Money.
Though her professional successes are many, they are only peripherally mentioned in the memoir. Instead, we learn about the dysfunctional family into which she was born.
Here are the basic and painful facts. When Teresa was three and her brother, Morgan, was five, their parents divorced. The father was awarded full custody of the children. He lived in Santa Monica, while the mom lived in San Francisco.
There is a wicked stepmother in the story who convinced the dad – after six months of having the kids move in – to break up the kids and return Teresa to her mom. Thus, Teresa and Morgan grew up in separate cities. They saw each other every month or two, and for a week in the summer, and sometimes on holidays. That is until nine years passed and teenaged Morgan got sent home to his mother too.
It should be noted that motherhood did not come naturally to the mom, but at least she wanted her kids. I say this even though the mom’s story is not fully developed in this memoir.
At any rate, more grief was to come to this family when Morgan, at the age of forty, was diagnosed with spinal cancer. He died seven years later. Exactly four months to the day after his death, the mom died too.
As the memoir starts, both deaths have occurred. Teresa is a married adult with two sons, and her dad has just moved to Phoenix to be near them. The older son, Nate, is in third grade and plays Little League baseball. The dad and Teresa go to all the games together, and in that setting, sitting side-by-side, she processes her childhood rage and her grief.
What book clubs will love to discuss about this book is whether Teresa can – or should – forgive her father. Clearly, this is a “when bad things happen to good people” type of story when we think of Teresa and Morgan. But is it also a “when good people do bad things” story when we think of the dad? Or is his bad parenting more evil than that?
As a daughter, I rail against the concept of a dad giving his daughter away! Wouldn’t he see what an emotional scar that would leave?
As a parent, I have more understanding. I recognize that all of my parenting actions have not been stellar and pray for forgiveness. Thus, on behalf of imperfect parents everywhere, I thank Teresa Strasser for even trying with her dad, especially after such a trying start.
Beyond reading this book as a daughter and as a parent, I also read this book as a baseball fan. Trust me, there are a lot of wonderful Little League games to “see” here plus Nate’s team makes it into a postseason tournament.
The author explains that it is a “single elimination” tournament. If you lose one game, you have to hang up your jersey and wait until the next spring to play again. For teams in the tournament you either experience “sudden death” or you “survive and advance.”
The good news in the book is that Nate’s team manages to survive and advance…
…and so do Teresa Strasser and her father.
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