the time we have

"Library" says a little yellow post-it next to my kettle. I am sure it will remind me to go and pick up a book I have been in line for over a month. I usually like to return another book before picking up a new one. Jodie Picoult and Donna Tartt's books are thick. I am nowhere close finishing them. Page seventy-two in the first book and the second not even opened yet. The third book I borrowed is a thin and small book from an Estonian author.

Before heading out in the morning I tuck the small book in my school bag between my I-Pad and notebook. Reading in the morning and in the afternoon on the train, and some at school and some at home, I should be able to finish it in a day. Lots of reading but doable.

As soon as I sit down on a train, I unzip my jacket, unzip my bag, take out the train card, take out my book. I get several pages of reading done before the conductor arrives to check my ticket.
The beginning of a book is a marvellous description of Estonian nature, the word choice makes me jealous, I already make plans of how to "steal like and artist."

Two stops later the main character, and old and lonely man, overcomes a feeling that his time has come to the end. I keep reading but I don't see the words nor follow the meaning. The news about Amy Krouse Rosenthal's death floats to my mind. And her letter about her husband published ten days before her death. This won't make the news in Estonia. Years ago I hadn't heard about her either. Until her "One of Those Days," "The Wonder Book," and the "OK Book" became yearly visitors in Grade 3. When I read her "Encyclopaedia of Ordinary Life" I considered it one of the most extraordinary books I had ever read.

She was only fifty-one. Seven years older than me. This shouldn't have been the end of her time.

I put away my book and take out the I-Pad to see what I had highlighted from her unusual memoir.
Under Y she filed "You" and in there she says, " Perhaps you think I didn't matter ...."
"But I was there."
"And I did things"
and a long list of every day actions mixed with emotions follows, like: I shopped for groceries, I hugged my mother, I wished I was older, I wished I was younger, I loved my children, I loved mayonnaise.
"I was here, you see, I was."

I stop reading. I put the I-Pad away. I only look out of the window for the rest of my train ride. I think of the time we have. I think of the unknown time I have left, and the time my loved ones have. I feel thankful that my mother stayed overnight last night.