My eldest uncle – my Uncle David – who was five siblings ahead of my mother, was an avid reader of books just as I am. When he passed away from cancer earlier this year in the late Spring, he bequeathed his book collection to me, his favorite nephew. I had to buy a new bookshelf to accommodate the considerable intake. The man LOVED to cook (and eat, of course) so there were a large number of cookbooks that I didn’t really have any use for, as well as some other nonfiction, very little of which I had any interest in, but there were plenty of novels, some older obscure stuff, but mostly mainstream bestselling author stuff like Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler and Jonathan Kellerman, among others.
While sick-and-dying in hospice care, yet hardly succumbing to death because he was too stubborn for that nonsense of going away quietly without a fight (if you knew the character my Uncle David was then you would know he gave Death all kinds of shit just BECAUSE!), he had been reading one of his newest book acquisitions, one with a catching cover you see because it was blue, my favorite color. The book was ORIGIN by bestselling author Dan Brown (yes, the DA VINCI CODE dude).
I recently pulled the book from my shelf and discovered that he had the novel bookmarked where he had left off on page 388 (of 461). I didn’t necessarily have any interest in reading the book anytime soon. However, an idea came to me, one that would be a specific way I could personally honor my beloved late uncle and that was quite simply the fact that I could finish reading the book for him. Don’t even start the book from page 1, rather just jump in cold at page 388 where he left off and read (and hopefully enjoy) the rest of it it for him.
So that’s what I’m going to do. Before year’s end. Maybe I’ll even be able to make some sense of it with roughly only 70 pages left.
Lost Signal 