I can admit now how you drove me crazy.

Stacks of books inside a large cardboard box

Cardboard boxes you swapped with Uncle Bill

Because he too always had his nose in a book.

I never believed you would finish reading them all.

One by one they dwindled down. Gone through like water.

How many lives did you live through books?

How many times have you been the hero?

How many times have you been the villain?

I would get so frustrated

Watching a movie with you.

You barely even glanced at the TV, and you’d say, “I’m rearranging the living room in my head.”

Where did your mind go?

Sometimes I like to think at the end that you have found yourself in a really good story from one of those books from the cardboard box.

It wasn’t really dementia. The story was just too good to come back from.

I hope heaven is like the book you could never put down. The one you read over and over, learning something new every time you finish it. The one that shatters your soul but sticks with you for the rest of your life.

I hope it’s a happy ending every single page.