While Roger and I were organizing all of the pieces we needed to put in place before opening our bookstore, we hooked up a trailer to our Jeep and drove across country, looking for ideas and fun things to sell.
On the way home, we stopped to visit my Grandma Jan outside Chicago. She was excited about our plans and announced that she wanted to give us some of her books to sell at our store. She'd been working on paring down her collection, but wanted to pare it down more before moving to a retirement home.
She had us pull all the books off the shelves and put them in stacks on the floor. Then she went through them one by one.
Every single one was a treasure. A book she loved, a book given to her by someone she loved, or a book she read at a time in her life or in a place she loved. One by one they all went back on her shelf. She couldn't part with any of them.
Except for one.
When she picked up a copy of the I Ching, she said without a trace of sentiment, "You can have this one. I never really understood it." And she handed it to us so we could take it away.
No comments:
Post a Comment