The Echo of Old Books

by Barbara Davis

There’s nothing more personal than a book, especially one that’s become an important part of someone’s life.”

In this life, there are losses that can never be anticipated. Grief that comes at you out of the darkness. Blows that land so swiftly and deftly that there’s simply no way to prepare for them. But sometimes you do see the blow coming. You see it and you stand there and let it knock you down. And later—years later—you’re still asking yourself how you could have been such a fool. You were that kind of blow. Because I saw you coming that very first night. And I let you knock me down anyway.

We read not to escape life but to learn how to live it more deeply and richly, to experience the world through the eyes of the other.

You’re the answer to a prayer I never thought to pray—and a threat to all my plans—but I’m not strong enough to walk away. I want you. In whatever way it’s possible to have you, for however long it’s possible to have you. Knowing it’s a mistake, knowing it solves nothing. Knowing that one day we will stand here again, on the brink of goodbye.

In every wound, there is a gift. Even the self-inflicted ones.

She had learned only recently the power of forgiveness, and had come to understand that the choice to forgive was as much about self-healing as about absolving another of their guilt.