James McBride goes to Virginia, back to where his mother lived in order to try and find the purpose for which he is there. Apart from that he learns about his mothers effects on what she has done in her lifetime. Although james McBride goes to speak with James Aubrey, he realizes that when he goes to visit over there all the jewish people would greet him in a kindly manner. In Chapter 22, as James speaks to Rubenstein, he sees the significance of what Aubrey has to say about him. As he meets him Aubrey is astonished to see James, but shows no emotional effect of his presence and personality. When he is told to go meet the Jaffe family, he realizes that they treat him in a kindly manner that makes him feel welcomed and warm. While he talked …show more content…
Changes such as marrying a black man and leaving to find something. He realized that it was a great deal at the time, and so he is astonished to listen about how his mother lead to make her own decisions, and end up making it through everything she was put up with. “I said nothing, listening in silence. I imagined that the news of Mommy’s marriage crashed through the Jewish community like an earthquake.” (McBride 226). In the end James is faced to question himself by telling himself what he was doing in this place that just seemed so lonely. That is when he realizes that all that his grandmother had to go through in order so that he could get to where he is today was not worth nothing. He finally understands that his place in the world is to continue on, and to not let his grandmother’s suffering and pain not go to waste. “A penetrating loneliness covered me, lay on me so heavily …” “ I left for new york happy in the knowledge that my grandmother had not suffered and died for nothing.” James has come to understand his significance and why his mother held back on him in answering questions of her past, apart from that he realizes who he is and understands his soul purpose in