We moved a large cabinet over the weekend that had been in our second-floor guest room for nearly 13 years. Removing all the books it held created a major mess and the opportunity to sort and cull our book collection. It also necessitated our purchasing another bookcase. Since it took two men to move the former cabinet down the stairs I decided the new bookcase needed to came apart easily and be able to be reassembled with the minimal construction skills my husband and I possess. Before placing the books on the new shelves I asked several questions. When did we get this book? Will we ever look at it again?
And that’s when it started to happen. I noticed occasionally a book turned out to contain a forgotten treasure. Living with a Life-Threatening Illness almost made the gifting pile until I noticed an envelope inside. It was a holiday card from our youngest son Kenneth. He had added a personal note to the text. “Thanks for your support, from your s
on and friend, Kenneth.” I don’t know if he gave us the book, or whether I put the card inside later because the note’s message was so connected to the book’s theme.
The date on the card was December 1993, the month and year Kenneth was diagnosed with AIDS.
Though it was a task I had dreaded, after this first precious “voice from the past,” I progressed through my book-sorting task with a grateful heart and the sweet sorrow of precious memories coming to life. My next discovery was in The Book of Qualities by J. Ruth Gendler, a slender volume I remember receiving as a gift from my best friend Rose. What I’d forgotten was the letter from her inside its pages. It was dated Nov. 11, without the year. Rose mentions the election and she died in the fall of 1995, so 1992 had to be the date. Her note is congratulating
us on putting an offer in on a beachfront condo she and I discovered on one of our visits to the beach at Corpus Christi, Texas. “It will be great to have a place to go to, at least 14 days a year,” she teased, referring to the regulations on how often you can personally use an investment property.
After these two discoveries, I slowed down to look inside each book, to be sure I wasn’t missing a significant dedication or insert. When I came across, The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G. Walker, I was rewarded doubly. The front piece contained two hand-written notes dated September 5, 1987, the date we opened Iatreia Institute for the Healing Arts, our behavioral health care clinic. Our friend and clinic manager Jyoti King wrote, “To Sheila – To remind her of the Power-Here’s to the Victory of Transformation, Love, Jyoti. Her husband, our business advisor, and a friend wrote, “To Sheila, On this day of passage, a reminder of those who have traveled this way before. You are not alone. You are not the same. Love, Randall.
Now that I’ve discovered the bookcase as a place of hidden treasures, I wonder what will happen in the future as we rely more on digital versions of our books.
As I constructed the new bookcase, I came across an art piece I fo
und in the old cabinet. It’s a framed picture of a new breed of daylily we had named “Ken of Arlington,” when our son died. Its message seems especially appropriate to my bookcase experience. “When a loved one becomes a memory then the memory becomes a treasure.” And we give thanks for what brings those memories alive.
