SB LACROIX

“Do you want Mum’s old books?” my father said, his eyebrows raised in question. His gray-blue eyes met mine. “They meant an awful lot to her.”

“Sure Dad,” I replied, “I’ll take them.”

I knew the books meant a lot to my mother, although, I wasn’t exactly sure why, other than the fact she loved books. Perhaps it was because they were quite old, some being published over a century ago. Perhaps it was because one belonged to her mother who had written her name in it. Perhaps it was because they were special finds while browsing antique stores to add to her collection of old novels. I imagine she read them, mindful of the fragile binding as she turned each page.  

My mother was an avid reader. I knew no one who read as much as she did. Every book she read, she read twice, minimum. She loved reading and she loved books. A trait I inherited. I knew my mother would be pleased I took her books, especially the old ones. My husband and I packed the boxes of books into our SUV and took them home where they were unloaded and awaited my sorting.

A few days passed, and I decided I had the time to open the boxes. I stood looking at the boxes of my deceased mother’s books.  She had been dead for a year and a half. I had grieved her. I still missed her. And I would always be sorry for the tragic way in which she died. 

With the opening of each box, I could smell her house. With the handling of each book, I could feel her presence.  With the reading of each title, I could feel her love of stories. I was filled with a mixture of comfort and sorrow.

It took me three passes through each box to know which ones I should keep.  My first pass through collected the really old books and found them a place on a shelf in our home office. That was the easy part. The other books would be more challenging. I went through them once and thought I had done a good job sorting them, however; the next day I was going through the books again. I wasn’t sure why, but there were more I needed to keep. I wasn’t sure if I would ever read them, but I knew I had to keep them. 

Once I had placed the books I was keeping in one of her bookcases that now stood in my house, I felt her energy swirling in the room. I placed on the book shelf one of her favorite trinkets and a photo of her as a child. I don’t know if I did that for me or for her.  I think it was both.

Later that day, my husband and I were in the kitchen when I felt a sadness sweep over me like a chill, and I began weeping. I had not taken into account what handling her books, objects she held in her hands for hours a time, would have on me, and how those hands had belonged to a woman who had been both the source of suffering and comfort in my life. 

Death has always been a very difficult thing for me to process. I imagine it is for most. For me, it was my introduction to the finality of death at a young age, and the grief it caused never really left me. I lost three of my four grandparents starting at the age of six and proceeding every two years until age ten. Two of those who passed were my mother’s parents. I watched her take the telephone call informing her that her mother had died. I stood feeling helpless as she embraced the news. I was a quiet child and my mother often seemed all powerful, yet on that day her power failed her and she melted down the wall, phone in hand, sobbing. 

The early Sunday morning my mother passed I was startled awake by the distinct feeling of a presence at the foot of my bed. I gasped as I sat up, fully expecting to see someone standing there, the feeling quite strong.  My mother’s death certificate confirmed the time of her passing. I knew the presence I felt was hers. 

My mother loved books. She loved reading anything I wrote, and she loved me. She’d be happy that I display her special, old books as she once did.  I took the photograph below to show my dad what I did with them. I wish I could show her, but something tells me she knows.