Some thoughts on To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I was thinking about To Kill a Mockingbird last night. I was driving home right after the storm hit and I had the kids with me in the car. Emma was sleeping in her carseat, and Ava was so tired she might as well have been sleeping. I didn't have the radio on, there were very few cars on the road, and it was so quiet, a kind of quiet than I haven’t experienced in a very long time, still and comforting. I don't know if I was feeling nostalgic or comforted, but for some reason my thoughts drifted to Harper Lee's only novel. I was thinking about the characters, mainly Atticus, and how, even though I've read the book probably a hundred times, I always want Atticus to end up with Mrs. Maudie in the end. I'm not only one that wants this either. Many class discussions have ended or began or lasted an entire period on the discussion of why Mrs. Maudie and Atticus should get together. I was wondering why we want them, so badly, to end up together, because To Kill a Mockingbird really isn't a love story. I mean, it's a love story of sorts: Atticus loves his children, his children love Dill, but it isn't a romance novel. And yet, they are so perfect for each other that anyone who reads the book realizes this, but Harper Lee never lets on that Atticus and Mrs. Maudie know this.
I also started thinking about the end of the book. Right after Boo rescues the children and Scout walks Boo home, there is this perfect part where Scout finally stands in Boo Radley's shoes as she looks out onto the neighborhood and sees it as Boo must see it every day. I don't think anyone has ever or will ever write a more perfect scene in history. She looks out onto the neighborhood and details all that has happened in the book, and every time I have to hold back tears. Like I said above, I literally have read the book a hundred times, probably more than that, and every time it happens. I get to that part where Scout says Boo's children needed him, and I want to just start sobbing. Then she goes home and Atticus (who is probably the best father in all of literature) tucks her in and reads her a story and the book ends with Atticus saying, "Most people are Scout, when you finally see them," and again I feel those tears creeping in the corners of eyes.
Some of my students get angry and they want to know more about the characters. They want to know about Scout and Jem and Dill, the want to know if Mrs. Maudie and Atticus ever get together, but not me. I honestly think it is the best ending to a novel that I have ever read. It’s just that I know everyone will be fine, and even though Harper Lee doesn’t say, “and they all lived happily ever after,” I just know they will.