Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Same Kind of Different as Me, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Slavery and Racism
Homelessness
Reconciliation
Christian Faith
Charity, Love, and Ego
Summary
Analysis
Home with Deborah, Ron helps her flip through old photo albums and memorabilia and decide who she will leave some of her prized antiques to. One day, she asks Ron to call the children into her room and join them. When he does, Deborah asks her children to allow Ron to fall in love and remarry again after she dies. Ron doesn’t want to hear this, but Deborah insists. After the children leave, Deborah tells Ron he can even go back to the Beverly Hills artist he had an affair with all those years ago, if it will make him happy. Ron doesn’t want to return to that period of his life, but Deborah affirms that ultimately, that affair was a good thing, since it led to the strengthening of their marriage and such a happy, fulfilling life over the last decade.
Deborah’s affirmation of Ron’s affair is surprising to both him and the reader, but ultimately demonstrates Christian faith’s potential for creating meaning out of tragedy. While most would see Ron’s affair as nothing more than a terrible thing and the lowest period of their marriage, Deborah recognizes that out of that darkness, their marriage was given a new life, leading to the happiest years either of them ever experienced.
Themes
