Reading has always been one of my most favorite things. I still feel excited as I seek new books to read, whether at a favorite library, a neighborhood lending library, bookstore, or even an audiobook on Libby. I own more books than I may ever read, even though I’ve also spent time clearing my shelves.

I dedicate nearly a page of my 2024 memoir, From First Breath to Last, to reminisce about reading with Mom in her final months of life. Today, any reference to the Wind in the Willows or Frog and Toad brings back memories of reading to her at Fields Bridge Park, and later, Freepons Park. I hear Mom’s, even then, surprisingly hearty laugh. I look forward to reading the book someday to my grandson. And when I do, I’m certain I’ll tell him how much his great grandmother loved it.

Books I can’t yet force myself to give away are those final curated volumes of my parents. Some of these I’ve read, not always because the topic interests me, but because they tell me bits about these relatives no longer on earth. One example are books my grandfather wrote; Daddy Dick to us, Richard Gill Montgomery printed on the book cover. One of my regrets is to never have asked him about his writing when alive. I’m grateful for a preserved recording by the Oregon HIstorical Society through which these fifty years later, I can listen to him talk about his writing, even though the subject wasn’t something I thought to ask him about in my younger days.

I began writing my books in earnest not long after Dad died in 2014. I have kept several shelves of books dedicated to his interest in Oregon history, including many addressing maritime operations. He would laugh to know how I pored through them recently to find a photo of the steamer I briefly refer to in A Map of Her Own.

I can easily imagine Dad’s reaction to learning about the books I’ve published in this last decade. After all, he was the one known to deliver the best one liners. Throughout my adulthood he would remark, “Dede, watch out for the hard ball,” his face settling into its trademark waggish grin.

If they were with us today, I am certain both Dad and Daddy Dick would love the “easter egg” I placed in my newest work of fiction, A Map of Her Own. After all, they both loved to tell stories of J.K. Gill, my grandfather’s grandfather.

But most recently I have been thinking about trading book stories with my dear neighbor. With her no longer with us, I occasionally visit her bookshelves as if a lending library. Perhaps it’s my way of retriggering conversations we shared over the decades; sharing our mutual love of books and libraries. After her death, I noticed a then dated local newspaper clipping of my interview for From First Breath to Last on her refrigerator, a book I gave her that year for her birthday. As I first scanned her bookshelves I was surprised to uncover my own copy of Fredrik Backman’s Anxious People. We often loaned each other our favorite books. Maybe she hadn’t finished it, or just forgot. Slowly I scanned the titles of each book on her shelves, unsurprised by the titles she had acquired, a few favorite authors whose books line my shelf as well. Since then I have borrowed several: Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell; even trying out my first Louise Penny work (Glass House). With each book I spy on her shelf or borrow to read, I feel a surprising closeness to this friend I miss.

Yes, books enrich our lives. They offer opportunities to feel emotions both similar and different to what we may be experiencing in our own realities. Too, their journeys take us to new places, and return us to those we’ve visited before. They make us laugh and cry. And when we are lucky, they bring those people we miss back into our hearts.

Has a book you read returned a departed loved one back into your thoughts?

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A bit of Wind in the Willows alongside the Tualatin River.