Mama, ooooh, didn't mean to make you cry

Dear Mom,

Do you remember that little wooden bookshelf you bought at Birdcage Antiques on Highway 8 in Vineland when I was a little girl? The one I had in my room until we moved to the farm, and then you bought me that big teak wall unit, and you put the little oak bookcase in your den, remember?

And then when you left Daddy and I had to go clean all my stuff out of the house and take it to my own house, I took that bookshelf, and my Nancy Drew and Donna Parker books, and the beautiful hardcover set of all the Little Women books, and The Wizard of Oz and The Swiss Family Robinson and Black Beauty and all my German storybooks, and I've had them with me ever since.



Can you see the pile of Dr. Seuss books there on the bottom shelf? Do you recognize the one that's on top? That was always my favourite.

Well, Mom, I don't have the little oak bookshelf anymore. I sold it. I've been selling, throwing away, and giving away, a lot of things lately. "Simplifying my life," is what you told me when you did it, a few years back. And I thank you for that, because it only took me two months to clean out your house. It could have taken much longer, had it been necessary in the 1980s.

I'm not simplifying my life; I'm complicating it. I have some big news, and I hope you approve. I'm moving to California.

There: said it out loud.

I never had the chance to tell you that X left me; you died two weeks later. Just as well, I suppose; you never knew about the darkest days and how I thought the sun would never again shine.

Oh, Mom, I have to tell you about what happened the other day. There are these two little girls that live in my building, Aramia and Persephone. Aramia is four, and Persephone is two, and I gave them all my Dr. Seuss books, even Put Me In The Zoo.



(Can you see my new faucet in the background of that photo? I installed that myself, using most of the tools in the toolbox you gave me for a housewarming present when I moved into my first apartment.)

Oh, Mom, you should have seen how excited they were about those books. Little girls, too little to be able to read them yet, but they were as excited as if I'd given them... well, I don't know what it is that little kids these days want; I was afraid they might all be zooed out on computer games. But books, mom; books. They were thrilled. They said, "Mommy, mommy, can you read this one to us tonight?" And their mother — I don't even know her name — was so appreciative. She kept saying, "Are you sure you want to give them all away?"

Well, no, I wasn't sure. At least I hadn't been, until I saw how happy my books made those two little girls. And then I was sure.

I haven't decided what to do with my Nancy Drew books. For now, I'm keeping them. See, I love all my books, but, like a bad parent, I love some more than others. My criteria for getting rid of a book is this: it's not worth reading twice. Although I did give Cinderella my copy of Tess of the D'Urbervilles) when she was here a couple of weeks ago. I've read that one about four times, but it's a paperback and she said she'd never read it. That book, I've read at least three times. I kept re-reading it because I was hoping it would end differently. That Angel wouldn't leave her.

Don't worry, I'm not getting rid of all my books. I'll be taking about 300 to California with me. Stephen King, Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon, T.C. Boyle, Mona Simpson, Charles Bukowski, Jane Smiley, Mordecai Richeler, and Steinbeck, Maugham, and Fitzgerald.

You know what else? I still have a bunch of your old books from the 1960s: Island in the Sun, Up the Down Staircase, Please Don't Eat The Daisies, and a book by Bob Hope called I Owe Russia $1200. Did you ever actually read that one?



This one will make you laugh: Do you remember Artie the Smartie?



You taught me to love books, Mom. Oh, how I loved my Donna Parker books. So much so, that I've carried them with me through twelve moves and five cities. But today, I'm taking them to my friends' daughter, Ana. She's ten.



Something else you taught me is to treat magazines the same way you treat books, but I'm going to have to stop that. See, I have ten years' worth of Harper's, and several boxes full of magazines such as Saturday Night, The Atlantic Monthly, The North American Review of Fiction, Writer's Digest, and Books in Canada. Because I used to write short stories. I got rid of all of them except the Harper's, and a New Yorker from February 15, 1993, which contains a short story called "Filthy With Things" by T. Coraghessan Boyle, one of my favourite authors. I'm afraid to read that story again, though.

All this cleaning and organizing has been making room on my bookshelf. This is my loyal companion, Pinky, Mom. You never met him, but you remember Mokie? He died last September.



Happy what would have been your 66th birthday, Mom. I miss you.


-Your daughter