This post is to point you over here to Simcha Fisher’s creative blog post documenting the last books her parents read before they died.

Thanks to my friend Natalie for thinking to share this post with me.

The way in which Simcha takes note of her parents’ last reads or, at least, the books that adorned and surrounded their bedside tables attests to the way in which a personal library is a reflection of a person’s soul.

This reminds me of Anne Fadiman’s splendid chapter on “Marrying Libraries” in her book Ex Libris in which she reflects amusingly, “After five years of marriage and a child, George and I finally resolved that we were ready for the more profound intimacy of library consolidation.”

I am also reminded of Fr. James V. Schall’s insistence on the importance or building a personal library.

He says:

When we move or build, we should look for places to keep our collected books and printed matter. Read books are a precious item. No one else will ever read a book quite the same way that we do. Books can speak in many different ways, even at different times in our own lives. I always assign what I consider fine and great books to my students, books that are worth reading again and again. I would be ashamed to assign to a student a book that I did not think worth keeping. I have myself read Aristotle and Plato and Aquinas and Chesterton many, many times—finding something new in each reading. Furthermore, at different times of my life, I have seen things in these works that I could not have seen when I was younger.

Thus, I conceive a personal library to be composed of books we have read again. I consider a book that we have read to be part of our memory, something we can quickly go back to, something we can look at again when a problem or controversy arises. Often we know that we have read the precise argument we need.

In this personal library of ours, as I have explained, we ought to have books that we have read, though there is nothing wrong with accumulating in advance books we might never read or read only years later. No serious book-lover will ever die having read every book he has managed to collect. This is not a sign of dilatoriness but of eagerness, anticipation. I do not mean here the technical books of a given discipline that quickly become out-of-date, though even these preserve a certain history. Rather, I mean those books which explain things, that touch on the truths of our being, that reach to what is.

As Simcha’s post shows, a personal library is not merely an individual possession; it can also be a remnant of a person’s values, quest, and character.

Have you stopped at any point during the pandemic to take note – and perhaps even photos – of the deserted streets? Maybe you noticed that you were the only person on the entire bus during rush hour. Or maybe you noticed the gradually shuttered businesses. Maybe you noticed the empty schoolyards and office buildings.

The extent to which you took notice of the dramatic emptiness is likely to correspond to the extent to which you are likely to revel in the return to life. After all, there was never a “new normal”, but only something very abnormal.

I have thought for some time that reuniting with friends (and heck, even with strangers) after the pandemic will feel a bit like a foretaste of the resurrection of the dead. After all, if anything can help our imagination of the phenomenon, it seems to me to be this experience of acute absence, separation, and isolation that will next be countered with intense presence, reunion, and togetherness.

Today I was in my hometown revelling in the return to life of people, businesses, worship, and optimism. As I walked through Prince’s Island Park, down Stephen’s Avenue, and along 17th Avenue, I marvelled at people – real human beings with flesh and bones associating with only the occassionally mediating plexiglass divider along the patios.

Today, in my hometown, I also visited the cathedral and, unexpectedly, saw three people who were great a surprise to see. Seeing these people who were so pivotal in my early life all in one place and after all these years also felt like a foretaste of the resurrection of the dead. There was something timeless about it.

The resurrection of the dead, an essential belief in Judaism and Christianity, is full of mystery. Still, I like to think we can enjoy intimations of it in everyday life, and perhaps particularly in the return to life from lockdowns and travel restrictions.

In families, people become known for certain recipes that they perfect and make their own by a certain flair.

This creates a connection between the particular food and the love of the cook for their family and friends.

When the dishes reappear annually on holidays and special occasions, the indispensability of those foods is a symbol for the indispensability of the person.

Without certain dishes, the table would seem as incomplete as it would if family members were delayed or absent.

My mother showed me this cookbook (pictured) that belonged to my paternal grandmother. About it she said, “It’s a real connection to your grandmother’s love for our family. She embellished it with many recipes she received from her own friends over the years and handwrote inside, making it a one-of-kind book that could not simply be re-purchased or replaced.”

In fact, after my grandmother died, my mother used the flourishes in this cookbook to inform the dishes she prepared for my grandfather. Of course, being served the same foods his wife had lovingly prepared during their sixty-eight years of marriage was a great blessing and consolation for him.

Recipes passed through generations can season life with the flavours of those who came before us.