Gifts From the Past

I had already started the day and left Liam to his own devices in the shower.  One of the perks of having an almost 8 year old, they can sanitize their own crevices.  I went downstairs and started the morning ritual of making coffee, packing lunches and tidying up left over laundry an over-night dishes.

After a while I noticed that the shower had stopped and it was very, very quiet upstairs. In fact it was so quiet that my parental spidey senses started to tingle. I trudged upstairs to find Liam sitting naked on his bed reading; and it was not just any book.

As my wife will attest I am something of a book packrat, and unlike her, routinely re-read my books. Once purchased a book is held on to for all time.  It is my goal in life that at some point I will own a proper den with walls completely covered with shelf upon shelf of books.  I have managed to hold onto a collection of books that I owned and cherished as a child. These books spent a number of years boxed under my mother’s stairs, and then eventually moved into my basement.  It was only about a year ago that I unpacked them and set them up in Liam’s room.  

They sat there for almost 18 months.  I have tried several times to try and interest Liam in having me read them to him but he declined. I tried never to push them on him (very much), but have mentioned them on occasion.  To me these books were not just good literature, but the ability to re-live a part of my childhood vicariously through Liam.  The earliest memories of reading start with these books.  My mind awakened to the vast possibilities of reading, to the immense worlds of imagination that would mentally fuel me for decades to come.

As I walked into Liam’s room he looked up from the book and asked if he could bring it to school for reading time. The book he was holding: The Hardy Boys book 1 The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon.

To my Aunt Sue,
     Though the years have caused us to drift apart and I do not make the effort to keep in touch like I should. I want to thank you for that first book.  I understand that my love of literature began in my mother’s lap, but at some point your gift of that first Hardy Boy book, my first copy of the Hobbit and my initial foray into Dungeons and Dragons was the breath of wind that ignited my literary spark into the passionate flame it is today.

And now your gift of so many years ago has now been handed off to a new generation.