How Life Is Nothing More than a Series of Sweet and Misinterpreted Memories
Reflections on reading ‘Flowers for Algernon’ to my children
Last night I finished reading Flowers for Algernon to my girls. My girls are 11 and 13. They’re both brilliant. I’m admittedly biased in this assessment, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.
As I closed the cover, my daughter looked up at me and said. “That book was depressing. Never read that book to us again.” She’s 13, that’s the way she talks.
Reading to my daughters before they go to bed has been our routine for years. Sometimes they’re tired and I might only select a short poem. Sometimes they get really excited about a book and we might read for an hour or more.
In the last 13 years, I’d estimate that there have been fewer than 10 nights that they didn’t go to bed without listening to me read something to them. Our reading time has become as habitual as brushing their teeth.
When the time comes for me to depart this Earth, I expect the hours spent reading to my children will stand alone as my proudest, most joyous, and most worthwhile moments.
Even when the stories are “depressing.”
