The odd thing about loving something when you’ve loved it is this: It’s not until it’s gone that you realize how much you really loved it. I had this old shirt metaphor in my head at my dad’s funeral. I likened, then, my dad to an old shirt in the back of my closet that I never wore and didn’t really care about until I couldn’t find it. Then suddenly, you love that shirt. Yes, I loved my dad, I realized that then at his funeral. But this idea of loving something and not knowing it until it’s gone has been on my brain recently or every time I walk by the now broken Kindle that sits on my dresser.
I didn’t know how fragile those things are. I didn’t know that if removed from their cases, these things called Kindles, these digital libraries can so easily be broken. But I found this out last week when after a good three months of constant use, my Kindle stopped working. Or, it works. But the screen’s broken making it impossible to read books. It was only three months of constant use, but what an amazing three months it was. I haven’t been online much because of my Kindle. I recently discovered that books could be purchased for free so it seemed everyday I had a new delight, mostly romance novels with predictable plot lines and mystery thrillers. The books I read on my Kindle weren’t always good but they were all entertaining and made my children’s naptimes seem like private escapes.
But now it’s broken. After three months.
You know what’s funny about my Kindle that no longer works? I had it for two years prior. I got it as a birthday gift but never used it because I was snotty about it not being a book. It was that plus I couldn’t find the Kindle’s charger which made using it seem like an impossible task. In the two years of it being in my life, my Kindle was used as a cell phone by my toddlers, wedged in a jammed packed office desk, and neglected on shelves. But it lived on. But I didn’t care because I didn’t have a use for it then. So whether it lived or died seemed all so inconsequential.
But then I found it three months ago. I discovered, too, that my old Android charger could charge it and we were in business. And I fell in love. For three months. But then it died and now I’m sad that the thing that I once neglected then loved is now gone.
So everyday I walk by that broken Kindle and think about how funny (or maybe how predictable?) love and life are. I think about how important it is to take care of people, to love them when they’re alive and to love your things when they are working. I think about my dad. I think about my Kindle. I think about how I miss them both.
Are you a Kindle or Nook reader? What are you currently reading?
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This post began as a Short Little Bit post. Or it began with me thinking I would be reviving that now defunct blog I started three years ago, the one where I wrote for five minutes and didn’t edit afterwards. This is a short little bit 2.o, meaning it wasn’t written in under 20 minutes and was lightly edited. 
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