Wednesday, February 18, 2015

My Longest Love Affair


The name of this post might have grabbed your attention, but instead of salacious details about the more intimate parts of my life, I'll be talking about something else entirely. After all, there are all sorts of love affairs. The one I'll be talking a little bit about today has everything to do with February being Love of Reading Month.

You see, the longest love affair I've ever had is an ongoing one, and my husband knows all about it. Yes-- my longest love affair has been with books.

I think I must've been born loving them, although no one can be certain. My grandmother and mother were great readers, so it stands to reason that I inherited this from them. Naturally my mother kept many of my baby things, among them my favorite cloth books and Little Golden Books. I can remember looking at these artifacts when I was a teenager and being rather surprised. I was used to seeing babies chewing on everything and had seen more than my share of slobbered- and chewed-on books. But mine weren't.

In fact, they were almost pristine. No cracked spines. No rips. No torn pages. No dirt. And definitely not a toothmark in sight. I asked Mom about the state of my favorite baby books. "Did you take my books away if I showed any signs of chewing on them?" I asked her. "No," she said. "You never made a move to put one of them in your mouth. Mostly you pretended to read them, or you were handing them to me to read them to you."

You're probably wondering what the photo to the right has to do with anything. Mice don't wear clothes. They don't sit in big comfy chairs, and they certainly don't read. I agree with you. They don't. But this tiny piece of art represents the beginning of my longest love affair.

I have about a dozen of these little figures. They're called Wee Forest Folk, and each one I've purchased represents a very strong and very cherished memory. The one to the right speaks to me of my very earliest memories. Of being held in my mother's lap as she read me story after story. I was tiny. (Or as tiny as a baby who was born 25 inches long can be.)

My very next memory was when I was old enough to sit on the floor by my mother's big blood red Naugahyde chair. I remember looking up at her. She was bathed in soft white light from the floor lamp by her chair, and she was reading a thick storybook for grownups. She looked more than a bit angelic to me, come to think of it, but what I remember most was the look of sublime pleasure on her face. And that book was what was making her so happy.

And if reading could make my mommy so happy, I wanted to be able to read so I could be that happy, too. That's when I began to pester her to teach me how to read. Poor woman! But she never once looked irritated or became short-tempered with me. Instead she began to teach me the alphabet.

Thus began my longest love affair, a love affair that will be with me to the end of my days. All because I was a little human sponge sitting on my mother's lap,  soaking up all the stories she told me. A little sponge who wanted to draw out every single drop of happiness from books. Just like my mother did.

I'm still a sponge, and I still love draining every single drop of happiness from the books I read.

Thank you, Mom.



7 comments:

  1. A beautiful post Cathy. share your love interest - and have similar early memories from my mum who passed on her own love of reading - weekly trips to the library and receiving my very own brand new book each birthday are very strong memories. One of the saddest parts of my mum developing dementia is that she no longer reads or gets any enjoyment from being read to. Talking to her about books is the thing I have missed most as this hideous disease has taken her over but I am hanging on to the old memories - they are deeply ingrained.

    A fellow sponge :)

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    1. I think dementia is the cruelest disease of all. Here's a big *HUG* for you and your mum from a fellow sponge.

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    2. Dementia is a horrible thing. So sorry that you've had to give up that part of your mother in the present. But, cherish the memories. I know you do. My mother also had dementia and did not like to be read to much, other than the Bible. But I could sing to her and she would sing with me. It's a funny thing what those days will bring, sadness and a little joy. :-)

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  2. Cathy - What a lovely post, and a lovely tribute to your mother. There is something about reading to small children that bonds us with them in a way that nothing else does, and I'm glad you had that experience. We read to our daughter every day for years, beginning long before she could follow a story. Didn't matter: the experience was what was important.

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    1. Yes, that's one thing I remember quite clearly-- the experience of being close to my mother, of sharing the same space, of having her attention focused on me was every bit as important as the stories themselves.

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  3. This was a lovely post. So sweet and heartfelt. My mother was not a big reader herself, but she certainly put in the hours reading to me. And taught me to read when I was 4. I'll always be so grateful to her for that. And I read to my daughter for years and years. Actually, she still liked to have me read to her when she was in her early teens. Sadly, she also is not much of a reader, but she does love to listen to audiobooks, which is reading in my opinion - just a different delivery system.

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    1. Audiobooks are definitely a form of reading! In fact, I would make a bet that even though she may not realize it, listening to those audiobooks connects her to her memories of you reading to her. :-)

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