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I moved from Boston to Oregon last year.  I left behind with my family a library of a few thousand thousand books I had accumulated over more than 20 years, with the plan that I would arrange to bring them here once I was settled.  They were books from college, that were left to me by my grandfather, and that I had selected carefully from old and used book shops.  I have a special relationship to books and reading, which have consoled me through difficult times.  So anyone could understand why I was upset when my mother called a charity to haul my books away.  Also, a conservative estimate of the monetary value of these books would be $70,000.

The lesson I learned was forgiveness.  Books can have unique value.  Like some other special and unique things, they can be halfway between "stuff" and people, they way a certain place can.  But in the end, they are only things, and you have to let things go.

posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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