A Meticulous choice

Grief is a heavy burden to carry. It attaches to your heart and soul in a way that is so strong and powerful it threatens to swallow you whole, at any moment. But it also stems from something beautiful and strong and powerful of its own… It comes from love.

Imagine loving someone so much that it transcends worlds. There is strength in grief and beauty, it’s pure love under a different shape. It’s rough. Like a forgotten diamond, gathering dust in a corner, shining bright still if only at certain times.

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Mom always loved spending time with my brother and I. Bedtime stories were her specialty and bonding time for us after her long days at work. Dad happily yielded – his forte was in sitting through our favourite shows with us. To this day, the man knows every episode of Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman better than I do!

The village we lived in was so small, it didn’t have any libraries. So, when the mobile library came to us at school, it was always a special day. I felt the excitement build up for an entire week leading up to it. We all helped set up the little benches in the common room. The school was a reflection of the village and so, preschoolers, kindergarteners as well as grade ones shared two classrooms and a common area.

I was always absentminded, in my own world, dreaming up big adventures and such. It was always enhanced on library week. At recess, everyone would play in the big tractor tires in the playground. I would join but be so distracted I would step in the “yucky water” that always gathered on the inside. No matter the wet socks and dirty water smell, nothing could spoil my mood that week.

Finally, the day would come. Everyone would be lining up at different times and ours, as kindergarteners, was towards the end of the day. Of course it was. I had a hard time concentrating at the best of times, but days like this were impossible. I was a lefthanded child in the nineties in France, and that meant we had to practice writing our alphabet in cursive, with a fountain pen. The exercise required extra effort because I would constantly smudge the letters with my hand as I wrote. I received no sympathy from my teachers despite being a really good student. In fact, I was often being accused of doing “Un travail de petit cochon”, doing a pig’s work. At least I didn’t get my left hand tied to my back, a fate my grandfather had suffered. But on that day, I didn’t even hear my teacher’s scolding. After all, she could have given me a regular pen instead of torturing and humiliating me and I had no time for it when the library was coming to visit.

At last, our timeslot came and with my nasty, leaky fountain pen securely put away, I lined up with my peers. Bouncing with barely contained excitement, I focused hard on not pushing the friends in front and behind me, I couldn’t risk being sent to the end of the line. What a task! The benches formed two big squares and the books were all carefully laid out. We were not allowed to take one until we were sure it was the one and could only borrow two books. I did not need two. I needed one. Oh, the pressure! Which adventure were mom and I going to go on tonight? A dolphin’s story? Or a day at the farm? Time travel and dinosaurs perhaps? No fairytales or princesses for me, I knew that much. I was a tomboy, wearing my big brother’s clothes by choice (to my parents’ dismay), climbing trees, catching frogs in the rivers. All the things that should not be gendered but rendered me, back then, a tomboy. No princesses in distress, they annoyed me to no end. Fix your own problems lady, you’re strong too!

Oh! The lifecycle of frogs. Not for story time, but this would be useful and I grabbed it with a sure hand. I had caught a handful of tadpoles in the river on the weekend and needed help raising my brood.

The end of the second square came faster than I thought, and I started to panic. What if nothing good came on the last stretch? Mom would surely be disappointed I could not find something good. We would resort to our collection of stories at home. Although diverse and great, we had read all of it together, twice or more. To my relief, something eventually caught my attention. The fourth to last book no less! Although the title evades me now, I remember the cover. A white book, with a family of bunnies. They were human-like and in a city. The image caught my eye the moment I saw it. I looked behind my shoulder to see my teacher and the librarian distracted by someone messing up at the beginning of square one. Perfect. My heart pumping, I dislodged the book and peaked inside quickly. It wasn’t too thick, but it meant perhaps we’d have time to look at my frog book afterward. It was exactly what I wanted. Some of the words were replaced by little pictograms. This meant an interactive story where mom would ask me to fill in and find the words. I closed the book quickly and picked it up, just as my teacher and the librarian looked my way- a close one.

Four-thirty in the afternoon finally came and if I can’t tell you now, but I certainly couldn’t have told you then either what class was all about. Dad came and picked me up, a usual occurrence as mom was working in the city. We chatted as I navigated my bike over the tree roots that were trying to force their way through the pavement.

Mom came home while I was playing in our large backyard. A child’s paradise, my brother and I would compete on who could go higher on the swing, then launch ourselves off into the air, followed by a (sometimes) controlled landing. Almost six years my senior, Loïc would always win and brag about it. It drove me crazy. No matter this time though. I jumped off the moment I heard our dog bark, signaling us of a presence on the property. Candy had many barks and this one meant Mom’s car was the one coming into the driveway! I rushed through the house, ignoring my father’s scolding for ‘walking in the house!” and I opened the front door forcefully, greeting my mom. I remember her smile as she caught me, hugging me and kissing my cheek.

“Did you find a good one?!” she asked immediately, and I nodded vigorously, although my wide smile must have given me away.

“Great, now let’s go have dinner and a bath before we can read it!”

Sigh. I wasn’t going to escape bath time, but at least I had a good book to look forward to. I’d even brush my teeth properly, go to the washroom without being prompted and wash my hands. No kidding around when there was a good book to read with mom!

With all the nighttime routine and chores accomplished and done, I went up to my room to wait for her. Both books sitting on my lap – Mom liked to talk about all of the books I chose and why I made those choices.

I heard her distinct footsteps up the stairs – soft but self-assured- and I could barely contain my excitement. She knocked and came in and settled next to me in bed. My absolute favourite time of the day. We read the book and the story was perfect. I loved the images; the story was fun and quirky with the bunny family visiting a non-descript American city. (We decided on it being New-York city). I found all of the words the pictograms depicted, and mom did all the voices perfectly. What a special night. She kissed me good night and I slept with the book under my pillow and dreamt of travelling to New-York City one day with mom and dad and I guess my brother too. Definitely with my dog though.

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I never saw the book again after returning it, and mom passed away a short month after her forty-ninth birthday. We had years of storytime for me to remember her by and I treasure that. She lost to cancer and in the years of illness I read to her. But the memories and the sheer force of her love still shine bright in my heart and soul today, over twenty years later, like a diamond.