The day I packed up Dalton’s clothes to store in the basement was hard.  When I stowed away his bathroom and school supplies, it was even more arduous.  Yesterday, as I was about to box up his childhood books, I discovered the process was the most grueling of the three tasks.  I have been trying to decide why.

From a very early age, I read to Dalton a lot.  Part of it was the teacher in me I suppose.  The other part stems from the inner nerd in me.  In middle school, I memorized Edgar Allen Poe. My freshman history teacher once told me, “Wow you really are a geek,” when he saw my copy of Rush Limbaugh’s The Way Things Ought to Be on my desk.  By my sophomore year in high school, I had read all of Shakespeare’s plays for fun.  You get the idea.

Dalton rarely stayed still once he started crawling.  Getting him to stay seated on my lap for an entire book was a real chore.  That didn’t stop me.  I would crawl on the ground beside him and attempt to get his attention long enough to read him another page of Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown.  By the time he was about three, there was one book he loved the most.  Over and over he wanted me to read him No, David! by David Shannon.  Except he changed the title to No, DD!  There was the page “DD, raise your hand!” as the little boy blurted out an answer in school.  Another page depicted the boy playing baseball in the living room as it read, “Not in the house, DD!”  I was convinced both of these scenes would be premonitions of what life with Dalton was going to be like.  And I was right.

When Dalton was scared to go to pre-school like a big boy, I read him The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn.  Just like the little raccoon’s mother did in the story, I placed a kiss on the inside of Dalton’s palm and folded his fingertips in to hold it in place.  He smiled as I told him all he had to do was press his hand to his cheek if he gets sad and to remember that I loved him.  I will have to ask Mrs. Mercer if that worked.

Continuing to sift through Dalton’s childhood books yesterday, I came across the pre-teen book Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz.  I found myself smiling through tears as I conjured up an image of my step-dad Richard with Colton, Keely, DD and all the neighborhood kids piled into his van on many dark weekend nights (yes I know how creepy that sounds).  Rich would use a flashlight and read them scary stories from the book as they laughed and screamed.  Every time he would start to read “The Toe,” DD would bolt out of the van and come and find me.  He wasn’t having that.

One of the last books Dalton ever read was The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet.  The novel must have intrigued him because he couldn’t stop giving me a play by play of each chapter in the car after school.  He made me unbelievably proud to listen to his twelve year old interpretation of a story full of hope, righteousness, retaliation, grace, and forgiveness.  I couldn’t wait till he entered high school so we could discuss classics like Animal Farm and The Odyssey.  I’m sure he wasn’t quite as enthusiastic as I was.

I placed each book into a Rubbermaid tub and was about to organize it alongside DD’s other possessions in the basement.  Then I stopped.  One by one, I took the books out of the container and organized them back on the shelves.  I arranged the picture books, the “easy-reader” books, and the chapter books all together in perfect order.  It was not their time to go.  Flipping through them doesn’t make me languish anymore.  Instead, they make me feel grateful. The books are yet another example of a life well lived.  Looking at them represents my boy at all ages.  The memories are resting on those shelves waiting on me to open them up when I need them.

The stars on high are shining bright —

Sweet dreams, my darling, sleep well…

Good night!

“Time for Bed” by Mem Fox (read ineffectively to my son many, many nights)