a letter to miss lee

For the past seven summers, I've read "To Kill a Mockingbird" without fail.

I'm sure anyone besides my immediate circle of friends (and maybe some of you in it) where all like

wait, what? did i hear that right?

Yeah, you're not alone.

But a few days ago as I was flying home from a yearlong stint up at school (and simultaneously following Scout, Dill, and Jem to the side of the Radley house with a note attached to a fishing pole), I was asked a question I didn't really have an answer for. 

The person with the query was the teenage girl sitting next to me, who was already getting on my nerves after she had asked as we were taking off - her arm already flung across my chest, holding her phone to the window - "Do you mind if I take a picture?" I had politely said, "Not at all!" although my inner J-Law had been all like, 

YES YOU IMBECILE TAKE YOUR STUPID INSTA PHOTO

Anyway.

When she posed her second question of the flight, "Why do you do that?" after finding out that I read this book every summer, I about lost it.

But I was caught a tad bit off guard, and so my train of thought went a little something like this small child's four wheeler.

Although my response of, "It's just such a good story!" had placated all the previous askers of this inevitable question, It didn't seem to work for her, and she responded, "Well, I didn't like it. At least until the last chapter when everything came together." 

My face looked a little something like Leslie Knope's right before she yells, "GREG PIKITUS!"

that was for you, emily.

And then she turned back to her iPhone in an attempt to win 2048 (which she proved unsuccessful in during the duration of the flight, much to my pleasure). 

But it bothered me. Why did I read this book? I couldn't come up with a straight answer. And so when I arrived home, I curled up on the couch, mentally placed myself in a living room where Atticus is seated in a rocking chair, paper in hand, and I thought.

First off, I consider reading this novel as a form of penance for disregarding such a well-written book because my father, in an effort to make sure I was well prepared for the coming school year, told me I could not read the newly released Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows until I had read To Kill a Mockingbird.

I don't think I've ever finished a book so fast (except maybe Harry himself). I'm pretty sure I was channelling my inner Belle after I finished both of them. (Hint: like this.)

note to self: buy a bookshelf that can support a ladder

Then again, that penance should have been over several years ago.

I once heard that a book deemed a "classic" has never finished what it has to say. I think that's a fair way to put Miss Lee's novel. There is reason it has been a high school staple for decades, a reason why it is considered one of the greatest American masterpieces. And it's the same for me.

When it comes down to it, this novel is about people. It's about what makes us inherently human - both the good and the bad. It proves there are horrible human beings on this planet, people who are selfish and mean and coldhearted (and maybe we sometimes fall into that category). And it also proves that among this darkness, there is light, brought by people who remain good and true and honest (a category we all hopefully fall into much more often than the former). But in the end, we're all human. In the end, like Scout says,"There's just one kind of folks - folks." But most of all, it reminds me of this simple truth:

There are still people like Atticus Finch, and I should try to be one of them. 

And so to Miss Lee, thank you. Your novel reminds my annually of the simple goodness of the human race, which, like my reading patterns, has been a constant in my life for several years, and it will remain so for many more to come. And I think that is the reason I love this book so much.

Because in the end, it is always there. No matter where I've been, who I've known, or how many mockingbirds I've accidentally hit over the past 12 months (because if I am honest with myself, this year has been witness to quite a few), the eternal summer of Mobile lives on, with Jem, Dill, Scout, and Atticus always ready to welcome me home.