Our Bookshelves, Our Selves

I called one afternoon after my aunt died. Would the library accept books from a longtime patron and avid reader? The woman softly asked who the patron was.

Who was she? Such a humanizing question to an anonymous call.

My mother and I had been sorting through my aunt’s life possessions for weeks by then, making difficult decisions as we neared the end of the month when her apartment would have to be cleared. Her clothes would be split between charities here, in Israel and in Guatemala. The food would go to a food bank. Her art and papers--childhood report cards, letters, newspaper clippings--would be packed up to be explored with my sons on chilly evenings in front of the fireplace, a way of keeping alive the memories of their Aunt Thelma, or Tanta Tibe as we called her.

But it was her books that sprang to mind when the librarian asked about my aunt. Her simple white bookcase held a prominent place in her apartment. She had no need to own a lot of books. She had the public library, and she used it endlessly to feed her thirst. The books she did own--often purchased at library sales--were stuffed with newspaper clippings about the author, book reviews or, in some, the author’s obituary.

Going through the books was the hardest, as my mother and I sat across from each other reading aloud the clippings, opening up book-marked pages, reading underlinings. There were short inscriptions from authors and longer personal notes from friends who had given her books. We felt we were in her presence. We made five piles--books for my parents, for me, for my brother, for a Jewish library and for my aunt’s beloved Fairfax branch of the Los Angeles Public Library.

Which is how I happened to find myself on the phone with a woman at the library asking about the patron. Her name was Thelma Cohen, I said, wondering why the woman asked. Could they possibly know her at a busy library in a city the size of Los Angeles? We knew Thelma, the woman said after a brief silence. She was one of our frequent and long-time patrons. In fact, the staff had recently talked about her and wondered if she was all right. She had not been at the library recently. The woman offered condolences I could tell were heartfelt and asked me to hold for her supervisor, who would want to talk to me.

My aunt came by her love of libraries honestly. Her mother--my grandmother--was a constant patron as well. I once asked my Bubbie how she remembered which books she had already checked out, and she said she put a large check mark on the back page of each book she finished. After she told me this, I went out of curiosity to the old Beverly Hills Library and discovered that every Yiddish book there had a large check mark.

On the day we took Tanta Tibe’s books to the library, several staff approached and asked if we were Ms. Cohen’s family. They told us of the Tibe they knew, a kind yet private woman. And they asked about her work, our family and her illness. My mother and I glowed. My two boys showed the librarians how each book had their great-aunt’s name in it, explaining that she would live on in their library. We stayed to talk and check out books, noticing how the library staff greeted many patrons by name, eagerly discussing books they were seeking.

Libraries are a touchstone in many people’s lives, places not just of shared knowledge but of community. And this was a gem of a library.

The books my aunt read enriched her life. They took her to places she would never visit; they brought her joy; they gave her courage and comfort. One of the last books my mother and I came upon was “Peace of Mind” by Joshua Loth Liebman, written in 1947 and inscribed to her from her “loving brother Morris.” Torn pieces of paper marked several pages. On page 134, she had underlined a passage that gave us a window into her thoughts: “Nature herself gives us courage.... Death is not to be feared. It is a friend.... Depart then without fear out of this world even as you came into it.... Yield your torch to others as in a race.... I often feel that death is not the enemy of life, but its friend, for it is the knowledge that our years are limited which makes them so precious.... The day that we are privileged to spend in the great park of life is not the same for all human beings, but there is enough beauty and joy and gaiety in the hours if we will but treasure them. Then for each one of us the moment comes when the great nurse, death, takes man, the child, by the hand and quietly says, ‘It is time to go home. Night is coming. It is your bedtime, child of earth.’”

At the checkout desk I gave the clerk Tanta Tibe’s library card to cancel. The woman said it was too soon; they would let her live a little longer in this wonderful sanctuary of books. She was blessed to have found this haven.