Books.

I love books. One of my favorite things is to go to a used bookstore and browse the titles, picking and choosing, looking, leafing, shelving again, or clutching them in a silent joy, glad for my discovery.

What moves me the most, sometimes, is the inscriptions

In a copy of "A Child's Garden of Verse," Rachel and Abby's grandmother wrote that she thought the book with all its beautiful pictures would be perfect for Mommy and Daddy to read to them, and that she knew that soon Rachel would be reading them to Abby. Mostly, though, Grandma just wanted to be there to read the book to them herself.

In another book of poetry about mothers and daughters, a mother wrote, "This book says everything. I love you, beautiful daughter."

How do those books, with their beautiful inscriptions, wind up in a thrift store? How do you discard tangible evidence that you are beloved? I wonder about Rachel and Abby and their grandmother. I wonder about the beautiful daughter and her mother as I continue to browse through the books.

I take my small pile of books to the counter, and I pay for them, and I walk out into a gray snowy day. I will take my 'new' books home where they will join the ones already on my shelf. The ones with no inscriptions.