The Warmth of Other Suns: Part Five: And, Perhaps, to Bloom Summary & Analysis

Chicago, 1997. In her kitchen, Ida Mae sticks to tradition, cooking the same Southern dishes that she has eaten all her life. When she tries new things, like replacing ordinary cornmeal with self-rising cornmeal in her cornbread, it just doesn’t turn out the same. As the oldest person left in her family, she’s a regular at every funeral. But each feels more tragic than the last. Ida Mae’s nephew Robert and his wife Catherine both have serious strokes, so she goes to visit them in the hospital. She feels deeply indebted to Robert, who originally helped her and George move to Chicago. She comforts him and tells him to trust in God.

One day, Ida Mae shows Wilkerson photos of her nephew’s funeral. Her nephew’s partner was so distraught that he wanted to get in the casket. Ida Mae says that this is what real love means. After her sister Irene dies in 1996, Ida Mae periodically goes to Milwaukee to manage her estate. Wilkerson accompanies her on one of her trips. On the way, it starts raining, and Wilkerson says she hopes it clears up. But Ida Mae calmly replies, “Now, we ain’t got nothing to do with God’s business.”

New York, 1997. Like many of his fellow migrants, George Starling considers moving back to the South for retirement. Many of his friends encourage him to go, but he decides that New York is his real home. Other migrants feel that returning to the South would mean “a retreat, an admission of failure or […] the end of life itself.” For instance, Babe Blye never wanted to go back to Florida. But when Babe realized he was terminally ill, he finally went. He wanted George to sing the song “Peace in the Valley” at his funeral, and George struggled to finish it through his tears.

Los Angeles, Autumn 1996. For Robert Foster, giving medical advice to aging friends and family members is practically a full-time job. When he visits an old college classmate at the hospital, an orderly runs up to him and reminisces about their time working together. But he also has regrets. He still dwells on the time he was rejected by the motels outside Phoenix, although he has never returned to that stretch of highway. He regrets putting unfair expectations on his daughters and teaching them so little about his childhood in the South. And he regrets idealizing California: it’s not perfect, but it’s much better than Monroe. He takes Wilkerson out for soul food and then asks her to drop him at the racetrack. In casinos, he feels confident and powerful. He still loves being the center of attention.