MY PARENT'S LEGACIES AND OUR ONE DREAM

My parents will never, ever be able to leave us legacies of millions of dollars. But SB and I will always thank them most gratefully for the legacies they did pass on to us, which have benefitted us so much, and enriched our lives like nothing else has done, before they even pass on. By this, I refer to our love of books and music.

Love of literature and music seemed to be bred in our genes. And my parents did all they could to nurture and encourage this love. My parents were voracious readers themselves, only financial constraints prevented them from being able to read more than they could. I never really remembered a time when I had gone without extra-curricular reading material since I learnt my letters. Even at our poorest, there was a trip to the library every so often. And if we kids could not make the trip for any reason, my mother went and picked out books for us. I think of some of the nonchalent, and worse, discouraging parents I encounter in bookstores these days, and I thank whoever is in charge that my parents are who they are. I have met parents who have refused their children story books because these interfere with their school work proper, and I know I will meet these children again in their future reincarnation as adults who will be unable phrase a simple email at work properly.


And my parents loved music. Dad played the percussion and the flute in the Chinese Orchestra when he was younger. I could hardly even talk when my mother taught me to sing. My father started me on the piano at age six, and all through my student years until I graduated from University, I played the trumpet in the band. When I was twenty one, I asked for my own trumpet for my coming of age birthday. Today, it gathers dust in the depths of my wardrobe, but I never forgot the thrill of making music, the beauty of a perfectly tuned chord, of playing the solos for Vaughn Williams' English Folk Song Suite, of knowing that those beautiful sounds originated from me. SB sang her way through life, through vocal chords damaged from acid reflux, and is still singing. Under very different circumstances, she might have made Broadway professionally, who knows?
 
SB and I have always had a common dream of running our own business that is somehow related to our first loves in life - books and/or music. We have talked about it forever, but seldom been able to really get a grasp on a realistic slant. So it has been more day dreams and idle talk than anything else. But recently, perhaps due to our respective discontent with our chosen pathways in life, we have started discussing more seriously.
 
Our germ of an idea involves a bookstore, dealing mainly in children's classics, which are being forgotten among all the new publications of today. I would also like to deal in hard-to-find, out-of-print publications, like my favourite Chalet School series. We both love our children's classics; they are classics because there is something about them that will not allow them to be forgotten in the minds of those who read them before. Classics are links between generations, a common topic, so to speak. These are the same stories our mothers read, and in some cases, our mothers' mothers and even further down the chain. Their loss would mean a discontinuity in the social fabric, however insignificant (This is a somewhat incoherent repeat of a quote from SB, who hopes to one day call herself a social scientist).
 
I did say I would love to own my own "Shop Around The Corner", didn't I?
 
It may just remain only a germ of an idea in our day dreams and never take off. But at our respective lowest points in our professional lives, having a dream like this is a life saver. We will, both of us, continue to read, and dream, read some more, dream some more, and maybe, just maybe, we will also one day have a legacy to pass on.