I learned to love books from my Mom.

As a child I could reliably find my Mom in the study next to her bedroom reading in a deep and cozy blue chair. There were stacks of books on the table next to her chair, more books in a large wicker basket that spilled out onto the floor. She read romance novels and mysteries, selections from Oprah’s book club. Reading was her retreat from the world, from raising three kids, from life in a small town. My Mom was always relaxed and happy when she was reading.

She introduced me to Anne of Green Gables and Little Women, then Rebecca, Gone with the Wind, and Wuthering Heights. I remember spending hours in my childhood bedroom reading, aware that my Mom was just down the hall in her blue chair.

As I grew older, my Mom and I traded books back and forth. When I came home from college or graduate school, whether I lived close or far away, she always saved a pile of her favorites for me to read. Since her diagnosis with Alzheimer’s Disease five years ago, Mom’s stacks of books are a mix of ones she has and hasn’t read. I look through them asking her which ones I can take. She tells me she can’t remember what she’s read, to take any I’d like.

I know my Mom isn’t keeping track of characters and settings and entire plots in books anymore. But if I ask her, she tells me she still loves to read. I don’t remember all the names, and I have to re-read things, she says. But she reads, often for hours at a time. As she spends less time going to lunch and playing bridge with friends, as she is no longer able to drive herself around town, reading is a familiar habit that brings her comfort. Reading is an escape from the noise and chaos of a world that moves too fast, a world where time slips and slides at will, leaving her confused and uncertain.

The books I collect from her now are all marked with lines. She underlines whole sections, sometimes puts stars next to a paragraph, a random arrow points to one line or another. There is no rhyme or reason to the marks. It is her effort to remember where she left off, or to at least know she has passed through a particular page in a book. She has no other way of knowing what she has read. The story starts over each time she picks up a book no matter where she places her bookmark.

The marks on the page poke through my thin outer shell to the sadness that swims in my veins. The marks are visible reminders of all she has lost, the lines like shadows of who my Mom used to be. She wanted to be a writer once. When I was in high school, she wrote a series of short stories with characters based on me and my siblings. She has a novel tucked away in a drawer somewhere that I’ve never read. I don’t know why she gave up on her dream of being a writer, and now it may be too late to ask. 

If we are lucky, the stories we read live on in us forever. We can draw upon an idea or a feeling evoked by a good book whenever we choose, turning an ordinary moment into something extraordinary. Like layers of skin we cannot see, we carry the meaning and memory of a good story with us always. That is the power, the beauty of a good story — to pull us beyond what we know, to lead us to new ideas, new places, new understanding. The experience helps us grow, learn, expand. We are better for the stories we’ve read. 

But what happens when we no longer remember our stories? Like my Mom, like the lines on the pages of her books, without our stories are we just a shadow of who we used to be? Maybe. Perhaps. I don’t know. But I think there is more power in story than just the remembering. My Mom and I shared stories. We share them still each time we exchange a new book. Even though my Mom no longer remembers the stories she’s read, I like to think their imprint remains, like thousands of minute stamps across her heart. 

I’m grateful we’ve read all the same books over the years. I will carry your stories for you, Mom, with me always.