Wrapped Up in Books

Cleaning the garage. We procrastinate about it, as sorting through boxes which may contain painful experiences from our past can be an unpleasant experience. It can also be cathartic, as we need to clear out some of the past to hold what we need for the future.

We're still opening boxes from our most recent moves, looking for things we think are there and find things we didn't think were. A recent foray into that minefield of containers led us to a box of books, a few of which were from my childhood that I had passed on to my daughter. One of then was "Charlotte's Web".

This particular copy once belonged to my aunt. It was given to her by a family friend for Christmas when she was 10 years old. I found it in my grandparent's garage one summer. I was immediately hooked when Wilbur's life is threatened in the first line and read it cover to cover in short order. Wilbur survived a number of precarious situations. Charlotte, his savior, did not.

I was unprepared when Charlotte died near the end of the book. It is the first time I remember reading something that brought me to tears. I read and re-read the end of chapter 21 over and over again. How could this happen? What had I missed? How could the author allow such a thing to occur?

I finished the book and put it away. I would read it countless time over the next decade, and every time I did, Charlotte still died, but I cried a little less. Eventually I started to see the story as a great lesson about the cycle of life for both children and adults. Despite the life lesson it brings, I still cry at the end, knowing the hurt and pain that goes with losing someone who cared for you that much.

There were other items that made it into the donate box that day, but the books did not. They will stay with us as a reminder that while it is necessary to make room for the future, sometimes we need to hold on tight to the past.