Thursday, January 13, 2011

Remembering

Earlier this evening [at Starbucks] I began reading The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Final Year by Jay Parini -- and it put me on to a dear memory.
Many years ago, before my mother became increasingly ill with leukemia, I was visiting her and decided to take her out for coffee.
We ended up at a Chapters bookstore -- in the Starbucks.
It was such a cute time, chatting with her… it was very much like a date.
As we were about to leave she told me to go and pick out a book so that she could buy it for me. I protested, "No no mom -- you don't need to do that, I'm all fine for books, I have too many books," etc.
None of my arguments worked on her. She insisted. And I realized that this was an important thing for her to do, she really wanted to buy me something. I relented.
My mother was a deeply spiritual person, and so we found ourselves in that section of the bookstore, where I spied this book by Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You -- and as I thumbed through it -- I felt it was something I would be interested in reading one day. My mom paid for this book with cash, and I can still see her doing so. She was so pleased to hand it over to me.
The whole memory is just so 100% adorable to me tonight.
As soon as I got home I picked this currently unread book of mine from the shelf and held it in my hands -- remembering this sweet gesture of my dear mom.
I shall place it on my To Be Read List for 2011.

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2 comments:

Stefanie said...

What a wonderful memory!

D.B. said...

Great story!!! Thanks for sharing. Just before an "Estate Sale" at my last mega mansion, I was sitting quietly by myself, looking out the back window to the woods. I starting speaking to my deceased father and asked him to be with me that day whilst the vultures rifled through my stuff I had lovingly amassed over time. 2 dear friends came to help with the sale. They found a single book I had missed in the packing process. I opened it up and there was my dad's handwriting saying how he hoped I would enjoy the book. I made it through that day with a big smile on my face!