For the Love of Librarians

It's been a long time hasn't it?
Life got a bit crazy there for a while.  Too crazy.
Next year I am determined that will be different.  Next year I will find more balance.
I'll talk about next year and good things to come a bit later on but for the moment I just wanted to share something I've been mulling over here.

Last weekend the world lost someone fabulous. Someone inspirational.  Someone I was proud to have known.

I love books.  I love libraries.  Disappointingly though, sometimes librarians don't live up to my expectations.  Which is why Zellah was so amazing.  Zellah was like my own "personal" librarian.  She ran the Baby Bounce sessions at my local library when my kids were small.  First baby Hannah, then Dan, and finally Maddie fell under Zellah's spell.  Me, well we just kind of clicked from the start.  Zellah was the sort of librarian who really cared.  She had the same reading taste as I did and often when I would go in she would have a book she thought I might like put away for me.  Often when I was checking out a book she would say, "Oh! I want to read that one soon, tell me if it is a good one!"  She was the sort of librarian that didn't comment when I borrowed the same books over and over, or when I had to extend and re-extend my magazines because life had been too busy to read them.

I remember being heavily pregnant with Maddie and standing at the counter with books piled high in my arms while Hannah whined and a toddler Daniel threw himself on the ground and chucked a massive tantrum.  I remember feeling soooooo tired, and sooo frustrated and thinking I was going to cry and then Zellah's voice said "Just think Nell, next time I see you, you will have a sweet little baby bundle in your arms!"  and she smiled the sweetest smile and squeezed my arm, "you'll get through this, and one day you will look back and love these days."  She was so right.  So non-judgemental. She cared.

I remember borrowing "Tickle Tickle Tom" for the thousandth time and saying to her, "This book is our favourite and it is out of print so please if it ever gets decommisioned can we buy it?"  and her looking at it, and at my children, and saying, "gee, it really IS getting tatty isn't it? I think it is even too tatty to sell" as she stamped it with the "cancelled" stamp and passed it to my children.

Zellah was the sort of person the world needs more of.  She was not a best friend.  She was not even a close friend, but she touched our lives immeasurably and she will be forever missed.  Every life, no matter how brief, has the potential to change the world forever.

Thank you Zellah. My three little bookworms and I will not forget you.