Day 17, legacy.
One of the greatest inheritances I have received from my father is his love for reading and I wanted to pass it along to my children.
Studies have shown that reading for as little as 6 minutes can reduce stress by 68 %. But I did not need any studies to prove those facts. Reading has always been my solace.
As a child, I always had my head buried in a book. Reading was not just a hobby, books were my sanctuary, my imaginary getaways, they took me to places beyond my imagination.
However, nobody read to me as a child. It was not something parents did when and where I lived at the time. After I became a parent for the first time, I wanted to read to my child.
I grew up in India and the books I had read were in my native language. They were not available at our local library. But the library had its own children’s book section. I discovered all kinds of children’s books and different authors there, Dr Suess and Eric Carl being a few of them. They became some of our favorite authors.
Bedtime reading became our tradition and I continued to do so after the twins were born. In fact, which was something all of us looked forward to doing no matter how tired we were.
Before long, I had acquired a
collection of my own. We lived in the state of Tennessee at the time and loved
Dolly Parton’s imagination library scheme where all the children under five
were getting a free book each month. Oh, how eagerly we used to look forward to
those. Fond memories.
Recently, while
traveling on a plane, I saw that each of them had brought a book with them and
instead of watching something on their devices, they were busy reading their
books. My heart was filled with joy, and it called for celebration. I did
something right if not all. I have always seen my dad reading something and I
hope my children will remember their mother doing the same. This will be my
legacy I would love for them to have. Reading from an actual book may soon
become a thing of the past but if it were to still exist, this is the legacy I
would like to leave behind for my children.
I am aware that Dr Suess is at the center of controversy right now and some of his books were cancelled due to the same. But I would also like to acknowledge that while some of them have become problematic, there were some which sparked imagination and have addressed the values of kindness, resilience, being there for each other and staying true to your word.
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