keeping the book….

After my mom passed away in 2005,  we were sorting through her things and I found a book that I had given her for Mother’s Day.  It was called “Harvest of Bittersweet” by Pat Leimbach, who was a farm wife and mother just like my mom and me.   My mom was not an avid reader but I thought she would like this book because Pat Leimbach was from Ohio and because she wrote about the beauty and trials of being a farm wife.  I knew my mom could identify.

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So I kept the book and even read it again.   I placed it on my bookshelf and there it stayed collecting dust.   Each time I would clean the bookshelves and try to downsize the number of books I had kept over the years, I would pick it up and almost pull it from the shelf to pass on to someone else.  But something always made me keep it.  My mom didn’t keep everything I had ever given her, but she had kept this book.  So I hung on to it.

A couple of weeks ago, I became involved in a cleaning frenzy with out of town visitors expected and my house still in a mess with kitchen remodeling and no kitchen sink.  Of course I invited everyone for lunch (did you ever cook for a crowd without a kitchen sink?)

In the midst of this frenzy I decided the bookshelves looked a little messy so I sorted and dusted and finally decided to get rid of the book I had given to my mom.  I figured we had both read it at least once so it was time for someone else to enjoy it.  It was tossed into a plastic bag full of other books I decided I could live without and taken to the community center where I volunteer each week.  It was out of sight, out of mind.  I probably would have never thought of it again.

I returned this week to my volunteer position and was greeted by the thrift shop store director, who told me a friend who also volunteers there had bought a couple of books for me and had left them on the desk.  I eagerly reached in the bag, and found….   “Harvest of Bittersweet”  along with a note that read…”Harvest…..”  the rural answer to Erma Bombeck – pointers for your book.”

I laughed and thought – what a crazy turn of events.  The more I thought about it, the more I wondered about it.  Mother’s Day has been a difficult holiday since mom has passed.  Funny how this book came back to me the week before Mother’s Day.   It all seemed rather curious, rather transcendental.

I am keeping  the book.

* for Myra