Tuesday, February 14, 2012

The Greatest Gift of All

As some of you may know, my grandfather passed away as the dusk of the year 2011 hastened toward us. In the remaining moments before his light was extinguished, I took it upon myself to examine his abode. The clouds outside were melancholy, their weeping encroaching upon the silence as my mother slept beneath his bed covers. I had been awake, mostly conscious, for nearly thirty-six hours. Bouts of energy interrupted my attempts at reposal, despite my brain's desperate demands for rest. In an effort to satiate my restlessness, I surrendered to its will.

I kept my salivating curiosity confined to the limits of the living area. I saw the small couch in which I have slept on in my past excursions to visit my grandpa, Howie. There was a stack of newspapers from the last two days Grandpa was at the apartment neatly folded and piled upon one cushion. I wondered if he put them there last, or if one of his late wife's daughters put them there. Something about knowing what he had touched last gave me a sense of comfort, thinking that he still had a very recent impact upon the items in his life that represented normalcy.

There was his tan recliner, facing the television that was always on a news channel when brought to life. The dining room table with his laptop where he used to listen to his favorite songs from the '40s and '50s, like Doris Day's first number 1 hit, A Sentimental Journey. Letters and bills were stacked neatly on the table. Photographs of family and loved ones were framed and situated along the bookshelves.

My gaze glided across the photographs of Grandpa's late wife, Lela, beautiful and always shining with a brilliant smile. There was one that I found particularly breathtaking and that I thought was the photo that most encapsulated Lela's spirit. You could see in the reflection of her smile the love that my grandfather shared with her. There were photographs of Lela and Howie together, dressed all snazzy, one of her arms delicately looped around his arm as though they were a couple of teenagers posing for a picture before the prom. There were also photographs of their cherished pet, Pepper. He was a scraggly little chihuahua/terrier with the sweetest propensity. There was a little memorial or shrine built in his honor, including a cast of his paw print and a few bits of his fur.

Among the shelves was a retired tobacco pipe, a grey-haired pipe-smoking wooden figure, a rock with the word "Love" etched into its surface, a beer stein dedicated to Howie from Heidelberg, Germany, and numerous other trinkets that represented the love and connection they held dear to their hearts.

Lastly, the things that embraced most of my attention and caressed my curiosity the most were their books. As an avid reader and admirer of books, I found that this was the best avenue of energy dispensing. Not only that, but I find that searching through the bookshelves of one's home is perhaps the most interesting and accurate method of determining what a man or woman is made of. So the saying goes that one cannot judge a book by its cover. Beneath the book's binding is where you will find an abundance of information. I believe that an individual's bookshelf will allow you an intimate gaze beneath their own cover. Now, this is not limited to the books and their authors or their authors' ideas. One can own a collection of books that they have never peered inside for themselves, exploring the reaches of the author's perception of life. One can also own and read a plethora of books whose ideas or beliefs do not coincide with that of the owner's, though may themselves express the owner's character of openness to new or different viewpoints.

What I am more interested in than the obvious book titles, their themes, or their creators are the stories that the books themselves exude about their keepers. Many of the observations I glean from the shape that the books are in may be based mostly on speculation, but I like to think that the character of the book is in some way a reflection of the character of the owner.

What binding of ideas do they prefer? Is it a new hardback, paperback, previously owned, or the ephemeral library copy? Are the pages handled with care? Were they dog-eared on the corners? Is there writing in the margins expressing the reader's thoughts? Did they defile the pages with pen or pencil? Are certain lines or words underlined or highlighted? If so, what ideas did the reader feel were the most important or that may have resonated very strongly with them?

Sometimes I can tell by the edges of the pages when certain sections of the book have been handled. The edges of the pages will be slightly discolored as the reader takes her time exploring its contents. If there is no bookmark or if she has taken care to not sully the pages with folded corners, I can often count of this unforeseen blemish to tell me how far she got in the book, and perhaps what pages were the last ones whose words filled her mind.

Moreover, I romanticize books as intimate and personal extensions of its readers. Even if she did not particularly enjoy or agree with the book's content or with the creator's point of view, once she has read it, the book becomes an extension of herself, however minute that extension may be. She opens her mind, the portal to her being, and invites the printed words inside, connecting with them, breathing them in, and integrating them into her essence. She shares hers time and energy with this book, at one point in her life making it a priority in her life. It becomes a part of her that she obviously cherishes enough to keep and store so that it is visible to her visitors, allowing them an opportunity to peek inside of her mind and heart.

So I peeked. Some of the more aged and most handled books are those that most piqued my interest. One small book in particular caught my eye. The hard binding was well worn, torn and stained from storage and use. The pages were yellowed and the edges deckled. The cover of the spine was ripped away, revealing bits of the blued textblock. The cover was dark and water stained, its dingy appearance punctuated by a debossed gold and silver-colored image of a hand mirror. In the mirror's shiny reflection were the words "Rousseau's Confessions." The inside revealed the copyright date as 1901. Immediately upon cracking open the cover, I was greeted with a handwritten note written for the original recipient of the book:
A very merry Christmas to Georgi(?), in remembrance of many very happy hours. Lovingly, Lou - 1907 -
 Some others that caught my fancy were a leather-bound 1907 copyrighted version of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, the paged yellow from age, but otherwise far more clean and well-cared for than Confessions; and a hardbacked 1911 copy of Guy de Maupassant's Pierre & Jean & Other Stories in a condition similar to that of Rousseau's Confessions, though slightly more deplorable as the cover clings on for dear life. Interestingly, though equally as confounding, de Maupassant's signature is scrawled in one of the first few pages. This was interesting to me because of who the author was. Confounding because Guy de Maupassant perished approximately eighteen years prior to this book's copyright date. Sadly, it's more than likely a forgery.

Within the water stained, yellowing, and deckled pages of Pierre and Jean I find a glaringly modern bookmark. Slid in between pages 44 and 45 is a shining, glittery bookmark with the words "Downtown Plaza - Sacramento, CA" on one side, and a note on the other:
To Lela (my grandmother, Howard's second wife), the writer - 1994 - from your friend, Helen.
This bookmark served as a snapshot of time, like a photo, yet slightly more personal. This was a snapshot into a woman's, my late grandmother's, mind, the space that is the most intimate and personal property of any human being. Seeing this bookmark made me feel a little closer with her.

My grandfather, Howard Eitel, died later that following week.

A month and a half later, just last weekend, I received a box full of these books that I had been ogling during Grandpa Howie's final days of life as he was confined to his hospital bed. Confessions, Pierre and Jean, A Tale of Two Cities, a 1935 version of The Tale of Genji, an aged (copyright unknown) Victor Hugo's By Order of the King, an 1864 printing of Washington Irving's The Sketchbook, and four Historical Tales: The Romance of Reality books (King Arthur Vol.1, German, English, and Scandinavian -- from 1908).

I feel honored and humbled when I behold these books. They smell like time immortalized. I can feel the history as I touch the pages. I imagine the hands these must have passed through, the minds they must have molded, the thoughts they must have inspired, the smiles they may have encouraged, and the relationships that have been strengthened in their gifting. These books have been a part of other people's lives. They carry with them hints and pieces of their previous owners. I am now capable of being an intimate part of those lives as I embrace these works of art. And now I am able to contribute to these works by taking them into myself and, eventually, sharing them with someone else who will hopefully understand the beauty that they seek to share.

I am forever grateful for the gift of books.

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”
― Oscar Wilde

“In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.”
― Mark Twain

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”
― William Styron

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa
 

Grandpa Howie

Grandma Lela



R.I.P. Pepper