My happiest news in ages is that the branch library one block away––Roosevelt (for Teddy)––opened this week. I got tears of happiness when I saw their OPEN sign lit up in green again.
It'd closed exactly one year ago, when the governor's Stay-at-Home executive order went into effect on March 17, 2020.
This
winter I was clearing some clutter, and I came across a little jar of
my father's ashes that my sister had given me to disperse as I wanted.
(She took hers to California, to a spot on the beach of the Pacific
Ocean where she and our father liked to go.)
Spreading the ashes didn't mean that much to me, honestly, but I thought, what the
heck--the one thing my father and I totally shared was a love of books, reading and writing, and
libraries.
After he retired, he'd walk every day with his laptop to the
library downtown--the one I grew up going to.
(I know he'd be proud of my job as Book Lady.)
(I know he'd be proud of my job as Book Lady.)
So a couple weeks ago, when I was out walking the dog, I took the ashes along and sprinkled my father's ashes (dumped, really--they had clumped up in the almost-four years since he died) in the bushes at this branch library.
I figure any library stands for all libraries.
It pleased me, and I'm sure it would please him very much too.
My branch isn't open every day, and I haven't been in it yet.
I assume you can't linger, but I do want to at least RETURN MY BOOKS, which are a year overdue.
This morning I'm going to get a gift card from the coffee shop a couple blocks from the library and give it to the librarians as a Welcome Back.
