A Clean, Well-lighted Place for Books

To plan the move to our apartment in Ye Olde Folks Home, Alice and I spent hours fiddling with a diagram of the floor plan, plotting out where various furniture would go that we would shop for online from her room in the hospital.

One dream she had was of a sunny reading nook in the bedroom, with a chair right next to the big bay windows. She showed me an assortment of chairs, pointing to one she recommended.

“I really wanted this other chair over on the next page—it’s such a pretty color blue, but it’s $80 more than the others, so let’s go with this one.”

Well, I think you can guess what I did next. I ordered the chair that was $80 more, but somehow neglected to tell her.

When the chair arrived in a big cardboard box, you should have seen her face when the blue chair was unveiled.

Alas, she passed away before she had a chance to sit in that chair even once, but I can tell you that was probably the best $80 I ever spent. The look of adoration that earned me was worth it.