Does love and family coexist?

 

Millions of children are raised in a family with unconditional love, others are raised by people who love them only halfway, and the rest of the millions don’t receive love from any parent.  Jojo and Kayla receive love from their grandparents and so does Leonie, while Richie receives it from Pop.  In this way, does love and family coexist?

I believe there is always love in the family someone makes for themselves, whether that be by blood or not.  For Jojo, he didn’t find love from his mother, so he seeks out Pop who he respects and wants to make proud.  The very first page of the book describes Jojo’s desperate need for Pop to understand and respect him.  After all, Jojo doesn’t even consider Leonie to be his mother, and Kaya, despite being so young, doesn’t give her this title either. 

When it comes to Richie, he died protecting his family.  Readers can assume that his mother and father are absent in similar ways that Leonie is absent from Jojo and Kayla’s life, where there isn’t enough protection and sustenance being provided.  In attempting to provide for his family at such a young age (as Jojo does for Kayla), he ends up going to Parchman and never seeing them again.  His arrest rips him away from his old family and his old definition of love, so he in turn finds his new family and sense of love in River.  River saved him from as much torture and pain as possible to the point where River began to feel “happier than [he] had been before, still lighter, almost, maybe okay” (page 139).  Going against this, how can one say River was like a father to him when he ultimately was the one who killed Richie?  I believe it was almost a God-sent blessing to Richie because it saved him from the brutal torture he would suffer from the white mob who was hunting after him, and I believe River thought he was giving him peace by letting him escape from the hands of someone who loved him.  However, River wasn’t fully ethical because Richie might have been able to run away and give his family a better life and live past 12 years old.  Readers see this possible mistake because it’s not very clear whether this story frees Richie, as he just disappears rather violently. 

Readers also see Leonie's betrayal of her children.  Her past is her past and she got addicted to drugs, and it being her fault or not is another topic in of itself, but I believe it was her duty as a mother to sober up and be there for her kids especially when their father couldn’t be.  I think Leonie loves her kids in a twisted way, and we see this when they get pulled over because she gets scared to death that he will kill her babies, and yet she still berates them and doesn’t give them anything.  Despite Leonie betraying her kids by not being a present and loving mother, she doesn’t betray her other family in the end.  Right as Mam begins to get within days of death, we see Leonie break mentally for the first time and comprehend that her mother won’t be there soon, and I believe Leonie understands that she needs to begin making right everything she has done wrong.  We see this attempt to be better whenever she gathers stones to lay at her mother's bedside as she passes away, and she does this to link her mother's soul to nature because that is where she has found the most peace.  Even Richie, who has been searching for love this entire time, begins to “hear the song again; I know that singing … I have heard it from the golden place across the waters” (page 245).  This song represents the freedom from life that is emitted by those who have passed along, truly highlighting how much Leonie cared for her mother in her last moments as she called upon the spirit who would let her rest peacefully.

                Overall, I think one can find love in any situation one defines as family.  Jojo finds love within Pop and Kayla, Leonie finds love in her parents, just the same as Richie finds love in River.   Yet I also believe the ones who love and are loved by someone can be the ones who ultimately destroy it in the name of love.