To my grandchild with love...

In her 84^th year, Amy Peck sensed that her time was growing short.  Winter would soon arrive and death with it.  While she still remained in her small house, Amy examined her imposing bookcase.  It held so much of her life.

The bottom shelf was weighted down with books from her college years when she first studied to become a medical doctor.  Circumstances forced her to become a pharmacist.  Amy brushed her hands along them.  Organic Chemistry.  Pharmaceutics.  Advanced Mathematics.  Biology and Anatomy.  Heavy tomes even then, but these books were as concrete now. 

The next row contained collections of sermons given by William Spurgeon, 1887.  These Amy inherited from her mother-in-law, Laura A. Peck.  Perhaps she treasured these books more than the first row?

The third shelf up was a collection of books given to her over the years from family.  Knowing that Amy was a voracious reader with a questing mind, family had chosen carefully from contemporary publications.

The final shelf was Amy’s favored book shelf.  It held the treasured books of poetry, her Bibles, journals of poetry she had written, photographs carefully placed in small albums…the representation of her life that was most accessible.

It was here that Amy Peck began the last part of her literary journey.  She pulled volume by volume out, one at a time.  Opening the musty cover with a pen poised over the fly-leaf, Amy considered the book.  Then she wrote. 

“To Susan  With love from, Grandma   Read and enjoy these words that meant so much to me”

Amy worked her way down the bookshelf with the help of her daughter Helen.  When the books were all assigned to people whom she felt believed would love them best, Amy felt was pleased; her journey was almost over.  

She had sent her beloved books forward, like precious gifts.

Will this happen in the future?  Will my grandchild hold one of my favorite books with her name “To….From….” written with love?  Will her child hold a grandmother’s treasured Treasure Island and appreciate that her grandma knew she would love each word?

Kinda hard to do with a Kindle.  

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Electronic Books! Bah!

My husband thinks he wants one of those electronic books.  The Kindle ™ started off a few years ago, and cost upwards of $300.  Now the knock-offs are between $100-150, and he thinks he would like one.

I know better.  I bought him an iPod for Christmas a few years back.  Our son loaded some songs on it, and my husband took it.  Somewhere.  He doesn’t really know where it is, and it has been two years since he last saw it.  It is a source of tension between us, since I spent about $290 on it, after hearing him wax on and on in praise of the iPod.  It was a cute turquoise, about the size of a miniature box of matches.  Maybe that was the problem; it was just too darn small.  He is in stage 3 of the search for the thing, which means I have asked him about it again, and he has initiated a third search for it.

The electronic book is bigger, though, and a ‘book cover’ can be purchased to make the device seem more like a book.  The problem is that my husband reads mainly in the bathroom, for looonnnnnggg stretches of time.  I know he is done when I hear the sound of the paper book hitting the tile floor, and then the flush.  He couldn’t do that with an electronic book.  Also, he likes to underline thoughts, words, ideas, etc. in the books.  It doesn’t matter what kind of book it is.  Fiction, nonfiction, science fiction—he underlines things.  It takes a little work to underline things in an electronic book, and seems to be a waste of time.  Finally, he likes to own books; he likes to take one off the shelf, and thumb through it.  It makes him feel almost rich, having shelves of books. 

No, I don’t see the purchase of any type of electronic book in the future, but then he may go behind my back and get one.  That would be unwise, very unwise on his part.  I would not be happy.