The Books I Bought For My Mom

My Mother Visits New Worlds Made Of Words, With A Little Nudge From Me

Photo by Olena Bohovyk on Unsplash

The other day, I sat and listened, captivated, as my mom recounted the story of a book she finished reading. Her hands moved and her eyes closed at times, as she began to share her version of a book in great detail and depth.

I didn’t say a word, I didn’t dare interrupt, not because she would have minded but because I wanted to listen, and enjoyed as she spoke and her hands gestured. Mom is not a demonstrative speaker in most instances, unless she was either upset (likely with me, my brother, or what passes for the news) or wanted to recount a story.

When Mom was growing up, there was little time and no money for books. She had younger sisters to help with. That said, she taught me to read, write, and recounted multiplication tables with me. On long train rides to and back from a factory, Mom read science fiction and Jane Austen, from a choral* reef of text, made of random purchases and a collection of hand-me down tomes from a lovely widow who doted on her like a daughter. That was years ago.

She had just finished another story from a small squat column of books I bought over the last few months. It began with one book, and then another.

I have been buying books for her, knowing she would never buy anything for herself, which she reads a few pages of before she goes to sleep. I sense and see that each day has grown longer for Mom - the things she does is a bit less than what she did a year before, a bit slower despite her recovery after Dad’s passing. Over these last three years and four months since we laid Dad to rest, Mom has had a recovery of a kind but time is relentless with everyone. We are now mindful and watchful, just as we were with Dad a few years ago.

That said, Mom is a strong-willed person, with a daily relentless routine and work ethic to maintain it. There’s always a pot of soup ready, or being prepped. If it comes out of a can, it’s only because it passed muster. The garden begins again, after months of the soil being fed by coffee grounds, egg-shells, and fruit peelings. The flowers already have begun their bloom, tulips first, peonies next, and roses fashionably later, to last the rest of the long spring turned summer.

And it gets harder now but it never stops.

The specialists confirmed she is healthy, the meds have helped, and the merciless itching which Mom endured, during Dad’s final awful year, is long past. Her immune system is better. But now her ears have begun a sharp decline. The nerve endings fail, it is not believed to be either virus or a “benign” growth, just time.

One thing which goes on is her mind, eyes, and her hands. She can still read.

I mentioned books.

This is not a “list” for “list building purposes”. I am not emailing this to you. If you’re reading this, it’s completely by accident, a happy accident. You have your own lists, and worlds of words. This is just one of mine.

The books I bought for mom over the past year or so include:

Night on the Galactic Railroad and Other Stories from Ihatov (Modern Japanese Classics)

News of the World Mom began with the film, and I bought the book.

Simon the Fiddler Another book by Paulette Jiles, from the same “world”, also enjoyed.

Last Seen Wearing (Inspector Morse Mysteries) During those long days and weeks in the first hospital visit and then months of futile rehab for Dad, Mom and I began a British mysteries habit. This leaked into the original versions.

The Berry Pickers

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store Mom got into it. Extra handwaving.

The Map Colorist

The Secret Life of Bees

Great Circle

Lincoln in the Bardo

A Gentleman in Moscow Again, the adaptation sparks interest. We will see.

Hamnet

This was the outcome of watching a reinterpretation, where text had been turned into moving images and sound. Storytelling rules still rule.

If an adaptation is good enough to inspire interest, particularly feeling, one can only hope the book provides more.

Sometimes, the “tourist” version of a world of words, in an adaptation of a novel or story, can be just enough to spark a second visit, and more. We see with new eyes, and wander along the streets of that world, see new things and meet people all over again, characters whose names are familiar but whose inner stories have been given greater justice and detail.

We leave, make the writer’s story our own, inside the world of our memories.

Mom just finished another read, and will move on to another from the column of books on the night-stand. And in few days or weeks, she will tell me another story. I will be still and silent, and listen with anticipation.

*as in chorus of voices, all the voices of all those words from those worlds.