The Illustrated LARK RISE TO CANDLEFORD by Flora Thompson

 

I just finished reading this lovely book. The best thing about it? Here's the story ...

 

Let me say that I love watching Lark Rise To Candleford every Sunday at 7 p.m. on channel 4. The show takes you back to a simpler but harder life where it really is all about the people you live around and family. About working, playing and suffering together. Everyone is in the same boat financially so you pull your resources together to make a community whole. So it's a feel good show and you want to live there if only for a short time. It's so popular that you probably know what it is all about and this book is the real life account by Laura (the name Flora gives herself in the book).

 

But the good part for me? It's my story behind the story.

 

I was reorganizing my bookshelves to make them neater. I handled every book to decide if I needed to keep it, give it to Goodwill or pass it on to someone I knew whom I thought may like it. How delighted I was when I grabbed this book from the shelf and saw the title. Lark Rise To Candleford!!! Really? I had no idea I had the book. It had been there like a jewel hidden among other jewels.

 

In our family we put our names inside our book covers, and also we sign the books with a little note if we give them to someone else. In this book was my handwriting with a note to my mother telling her I loved her. It had been given to her from me in January of 1985. That was right after I had my thyroid taken out. Cancer. Maybe I gave it to her in thanks for taking care of me and my two little children during the recovery process. I lost my voice for awhile because the surgeon had to pick up my vocal chords to get them out of the way in order to chop chop. I thought I was going to have to sound like a raspy, longtime smoker of 101 years old but fortunately it passed. I cannot hit the high notes anymore nor sing for long periods but I can speak. It's all good.

 

Below my 1985 note I had also written that my mother had given the book back to me in 2009. I know she had picked it up a few times because the paper cover was slightly torn and wrinkled. It made me think of her hands holding the book, turning the pages and her eyes reading the words. Maybe she thought about me when she read it.

 

I know I thought about her.

 

I love you Mom.  Forever.