We have so.many.books. in our house.
So many of those books bring back so.many.memories.
We read a book to the kids every night from when we they were only months old as part of their bed time routine.
When Pete died, this was one of the things the kids missed most.
The thing they cried so many tears over in the months after he died.
And even now, if we revisit a book he read them, there are tears.
His enthusiastic, character-voice filled reading of books and Australian poetry.
Everything from voicing the Grand High Witch or the Saucepan Man, to excitement over Hush’s tail returning with lamingtions or the whereabouts of a coloured sheep, to dragging out the words describing the very last Geebung polo club player falling off his horse and dying.
It became an important part of his time with the kids. His time to sit and read and spend time with them.
Sorting through the kids books being back so many memories.
Packing these up is strange.
The kids are far too old for these books but I cannot bring myself to throw out or regift the ones we and the kids loved so much.
I have sorted through the kids books heavily, but there are 100 or so kids books I cannot part with.
They are too special.
To us as a family.
But it’s not just the kids books he read.
Pete was a prolific reader.
Every night. During weekends.
And he would often read books so many times they would literally fall apart in his hands ... and out of his hands as he fell asleep and they fell from the bed to floor (often waking him, which meant he’d just pick it up and start reading again before the process was repeated several times until he conceded to sleep and turned the lamp out).
I have tried to become engrossed in the Courtenays and Ballantynes, I have tried to follow the spy stories, tried to understand his ability to know what happens in books but re-read the same books every other year.
Packing these up is also strange.
I don’t enjoy, nor will I ever read these books of his.
But I cannot throw them out or re-gift them knowing he loved the stories so much.
So many of them evoke memories of them on a bedside table, strewn beside the bed where they had fallen the night before, the sound of his voice saying ‘oh here it is is!!’ as he rummaged through boxes after every move trying to find that book he has already read 15 times, to read again.
I’ve no idea what I’m meant to do with all these books we no longer need.
But they are coming with us
Comments