The Book Collection

Mom loved to collect books.

I remember we would make whole day trips out of going to different D.I.s in the valley so that Mom could look through the various book sections in search of specific titles or authors.
Because she loved getting the complete set of whatever the author had written.

It was a hobby that was fun for us kids to do too....because we ended up with so many stuffed animals by the end of the day. XD lol.
I think the parents may have ended up putting a limit on how many stuffed animals we could get after a while....

But it was a tradition for a while.
To go see if we could get more books for Mom's book collection.

And she ended up with a ton of books.
A good 5,000 if not more really.
We had a literal library downstairs.
A room stuffed full of book cases.
Probably around 30 or so of them.

Seriously.
It was a ton of books lol.

And one of the harder things about Mother Dearest's passing is....
The fact that her collection of books was incomplete.
She hadn't finished gathering all her authors --though really it was an endless task as most of her authors were still actively writing. So there were always new books coming out lol.
And of course, it's disheartening that she never got to read all those books. :( I mean...she knew she probably wouldn't.
As she did find more joy in the collecting of the books rather in the reading of them....

In any case.

We've been slowly going through all those books.

And as much as I would love to have her collection kept together and untouched....
It makes sense that if we aren't going to use them....or read them....
That we should give them away to other people who will.

So after Daddoo, the sibs and I went through the books to pick out ones that had meaning to us or that we thought we would read.
We opened it up to family, and later to friends and neighbors to come look at the books.

But there's so many left.
We still have a good 10 or so book cases filled with books.

Which just thinking how many books have been taken, and how many are still there....
It's crazy.

But still hard.
It was hard today.

As I was going through the books once more, looking for ones that friends and family had requested I look for.

Basically doing one of the last sweeps --though I will be coming back in a couple of days to look again for people.

But one of the last sweeps because Daddoo has reached the point where whatever isn't taken....
is going to be boxed up and donated to the libraries in the area.

Which. Yay that the books will be donated.

But kinda….really sad.
Just to see how fragmented and small Mother Dearest's collection has become.
To see it so divied up and torn apart.
Like it's great because the books were taken to be read and such and won't be sitting on a book shelf in the basement gathering dust anymore.

But it's still hard to see it go.
Hard to have the changes.
It will probably be hard to go downstairs.
As the library has been part of the household for like...my entire life.
And to have that one consistent piece now fading away and about to be completely removed from the picture....

Yah it's hard.
So hard.

Until you next see these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi