Books, Books and More Books

Mom and Dad had a lot of books! Mom used to say, "When I go, I feel sorry for you kids having to clean out this house with all those books." They had books in the living room, books in the TV room, books downstairs, books in dressers, books in boxes, so many books. There were lots of cookbooks, beaucoup de French and German books, Dad's books on chemistry, food safety, science, philosophy, tons of books on religion, and then an assortment of mysteries, novels, Reader's Digest condensed books and others. I was particularly interested in all the book on philosophy and religion. Dad was a chemistry major in college, but minored in philosophy, I think. As a scientist himself, he was interested in the reconciliation of science and religion.  I wish I could have talked to him about his explorations in that area. 

We each took some of their books, but there were so many that we couldn't take. We brought them to the library and Goodwill. I hope someone will enjoy reading them. We threw some of them away- old textbooks that wouldn't be useful today. They were books from the 40s and 50s. It was hard to throw them away with Dad's name written inside. I had a dream last week that Mom had not died. She was talking to me and Eileen about folding napkins and said that she had a book on that. I felt so bad because I didn't want to tell her that we had given or thrown away all her books. Last night, I had a variation on that dream. I bought a picture to give to Mom because she didn't have any pictures left on her walls. What a process. I don't know if Mom realized what the real hard part about getting rid of the books would be.