A Belated Thanks

How I would have loved to have been able to have a conversation with my mother today, on her 100th birthday. If anyone reading this has a parent approaching that milestone, congratulations.

Especially because I lost her way too soon, I'm proud to say I never hesitated telling my mother how much she meant to me. Still, following a recent conversation my wife and I had about our earliest memories of reading, I couldn't remember ever thanking Mom for instilling in me an abiding passion for the written word. Even if I did thank her, it likely wasn't enough, considering the subsequent depth of my love for literature.

Though most of my memories before age twelve - when music grabbed me by the throat - are fuzzy, as my wife and I talked, I clearly recollected the series Mom read to me as a young child. The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and the Bobsey twins were childhood friends; my version of Harry Potter. And though I can't recall any of the particulars from those books, I do remember being mesmerized by the fictional worlds my mother brought to life as she read. I'm reasonably sure she was the person most responsible for providing the foundation of my lifelong passion for reading. How I wish I could share that with her today on the centennial of her birth.

What is your earliest memory connected to reading? Is that memory closely tied to one or both of your parents?