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My brother was the one who told me to read Frank McCourt’s 1996 Pulitzer-winning memoir Angela’s Ashes. It was one of the books that made me who am I today: a voracious reader.

It took me 12 years before reading its 1999 sequel, ’T���� (short for “It is��). Reason: I wanted to let the cute and innocent boy Frank and his brothers Malachy, Michael and Alphie to stay as long as possible in my mind. I did not want them to grow up. I wanted to hold on to the image of those boys running and walking around the impoverished and dirty street of Limerick searching for coal and food. Angela’s Ashes struck me that much that I wanted the book’s memories to stay so I don’t want to imagine that those boys have grown up into men. In fact, when Frank McCourt (1930-2009) died two years ago (July 19, 2009), I did not want to hear about it. I neither read the article on the paper nor looked him up at the website.

So both succeeding memoirs, ’T���� and Teacher Man (2005) had to wait. When I joined ŷ������ in 2009, I added these books. One of my first friends Charles was reading these and he liked ’T���� so much that he also (same as his rating for Angela's)gave it a 5-star rating. I promised him that I would read this too but I still could not let go of Angela’s Ashes memories. My Peter Pan-like behavior still won over my promise. Then Charles had a hiatus in GR and I had another reason to bury these books at the bottom of my tbr heap of books.

Last month, Charles suddenly popped up in GR after two years of absence. Worse, he also said that he would attend our group’s meet up so we will see each other face-to-face. How will I explain to him that I have not yet read ’T����? So, I looked for this book. No need to romanticize the image of the McCourt boys. Wake up, K.D. and face the reality. People grow up, age and die. These are facts of life. Even if reading provides us the opportunity to create fictional worlds in our minds, facts are facts and Frank McCourt has long been dead.

So, I picked up ’T���� and started reading. Oh I hated the first part. What? The boy Frank is now a young man at 19 years old and left Ireland on MS Irish Oak going to New York? I struggled accepting the truth and could not relate to his grown up experiences: almost becoming a sexual prey by a Catholic priest in a hotel, US Army in Europe as a Corporal, his visit back to Ireland, graduating from NYU despite not finishing high school and his first years as a teacher at McKee Vocational and Technical High School and the prestigious Stuyvesant High School where his secret came out: He is the teacher who never finished high school. The story still retains that old playful and childlike tone that I felt in love with in Angela’s Ashes. McCourt has this uncanny ability of making simple dialogues catchy and witty. His tongue-in-cheek comments about Catholic and sex are just outrageous and can put smile even during gloomy days at home. Gloomy because my daughter had an accident and she is now wearing a shoulder sling, my wife feeling so busy sending and fetching our injured daughter to and from her school, one of the maids is on vacation while the other one is 5-month pregnant with no husband.

However, the second part of the book is awesome. Angela McCourt, the mother pays a visit to her sons in the US: Frank, now a high school teacher, Malachy, a bar owner, Michael, an American soldier and Alphie, living in Manhattan. Then when Angela dies in the US, she is cremated and her ashes are bought back to Ireland and was scattered in some tombs of famous people there. It explains the title of the first book as it reminds me that I had that question before in my mind.

I am glad I finally read this book. Now, I can face Charles and say that I’ve read the book and we can talk about it. And during the discussion, I’ll bear in mind that all these things �� the meet ups, the friends we make along the way, my daughter’s injury, my pregnant maid without a husband, etc �� all these things will pass. What is important is how we live the present. And as they say, if you should do something, you might as well give it your best. 'Tis your best that you should give life.

'Tis.