An Unbreakable Bond

Caroline wore black in the winter. She mourned her beloved great grandfather, who had just recently passed. A lifetime of wisdom, memories and a great deal of belongings left behind. Shortly after his passing, Caroline was put in charge by her family to go to her great grandfather's home and sort out his personal affects, left to decide which items fell under the categories: keep, throw away, or donate. That was simple enough. Caroline had always been one to take on a tedious project. She'd worked clerical jobs most her life and was often found doing research on various topics for recreation in her leisure, spending more time in the nonfiction section of the library than anywhere else. As Caroline entered her great grandfather's 1910s built home, there was a weight in the air. Standing still for a moment she inhaled the must of old books and the smell of the earthy wooden walls that surrounded her, eyes fixated on dust particles suspended weightlessly in a beam of sunlight coming from a nearby window. She exhaled, squeezed her great grandfather's old, iron house key in the palm of her cold hands and closed the door behind her. Venturing further into his house she made her way to his office that contained towering stacks of boxes filled with old files, piles of unevenly placed papers, scrapbooks, photographs and the like. Unfinished projects had already begun to form dust. She meticulously examined the pages of each document, before moving onto his books. He had always had such an impressive collection. The personal library in his home office donned a hand carved mahogany bookcase that spanned from floor to ceiling, containing weathered hardcover literary classics, philosophical texts and rare collections of Shakespeare's works. This is where Caroline first fell in love with reading. Fond memories she hadn't recollected since her youth, all at once, flooded back to her. As a girl, she'd sit cross legged at the foot of that skyscraping bookshelf and read for hours, tuning out the sound of laughter from her siblings playing just outside of those very walls.

"In another world, there?" Her great grandfather would routinely ask with a raspy chuckle, to which she would smile and nod enthusiastically. A resounding yes.

This room seemed so much bigger then, yet still it engulfed her. Caroline climbed the sliding library ladder to the top of the bookcase and began pulling down some of her favorite stories to pack away when something caught her attention. A small black book wedged between a collection of thick, leather bound encyclopedias and almanacs. She leaned in for a better look, then pulled it free from its hiding spot. Pulling the sleeve of her sweater over her palm, she wiped the dust from the black book's cover, revealing embossed gold, cursive lettering that read: Caroline.

Her heart stopped. She quickly descended from the ladder and sat cross legged at the foot of the bookcase, just as she had as a child and opened the book to a foreword:

"Caroline, too good for this world, always in another. -GG"

Tears began to form in her eyes as she turned the pages and had found that each page contained a quote from her favorite poems and stories, written in her great grandfather's handwriting, the ink hardly dried. The tears had fallen now, as she clutched the small black journal, holding it to her chest. As she held the book tightly, she felt an obstruction at it's center, as if there was something folded between the pages. Quickly wiping her eyes, she thumbed through the book until it opened exactly in the middle, revealing a small square of folded paper. Caroline took the mysterious note wedged within the book's center and carefully unfolded it. The note wasn't a note, but a dated bond document she knew to be valued at $20,000 dollars today, signed by her great grandfather. Caroline clasped her mouth with her hand as she examined the document hurriedly, reading every word within the small fine print.

"This must be some sort of mistake.." she whispered to herself before noticing a line of writing on the center page of the black book. "Take this and do good." It read. Her great grandfather was always a man of few words, but it was his warmth and wisdom that made him unforgettable. Overwhelmed with emotions, she began to cry. Hot tears filled her eyes once again as she sobbed uncontrollably at the thought of it all. How all this came to be because of her love of reading and the love of her great grandfather. How this amount of money could change everything, and how her great grandfather is gone and she could never truly thank him. After collecting herself, she refolded the bond to the line, placed it back where she found it within the small black book, and placed that book in one of the boxes she'd labeled: Donate.

His words echoed in her mind. "Take this and do good." So she did, and never looked back.