The Best Birthday Gift Wasn't Just a Book… It Was My Childhood
The other day, my older daughter asked me a simple question.
"Dad, what did you guys do back in the '80s to kill time?"
I smiled.
"We watched a couple of TV programs, played cricket and football until the streetlights came on, climbed trees, rode bikes everywhere, swam and sang a lot.. and we read books."
She stopped me almost immediately.
"Wait... I've never seen you read a book. Ever."
She was right.
In all her years growing up, she has never seen me curl up with a novel. That realization bothered me more than I expected. Somewhere between building a career, raising a family, paying mortgages, replying to emails, church, football, and life itself, I had quietly stopped reading.
I hadn't even noticed.
Our conversation drifted to the books I loved.
Sidney Sheldon.
Robert Ludlum.
Frederick Forsyth.
Alistair MacLean.
Jeffrey Archer.
And yes... I might as well admit it now...
I secretly enjoyed reading a few Mills & Boon novels too.
Every one of those books took me somewhere.
Where Eagles Dare made me dream of daring adventures.
Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less probably planted the first seeds of my accounting career.
But towering above them all was one masterpiece.
Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth.
Ironically, I never intended to read it.
I had gone to the library looking for something else. Every book on my list had already been checked out.
The librarian smiled, reached behind him, and handed me this enormous novel.
"This should keep you busy for a month or two."
Nine hundred and eighty-two pages.
Little did he know...
I finished it in four days.
When I told her that story, she looked at me as though I had claimed to run across India barefoot.
"Four days??"
She couldn't believe it.
Truth be told...
Neither can I.
Back then, I didn't just read books.
I lived inside them.
Reading The Pillars of the Earth gave me the same feeling I had when I first watched How Green Was My Valley.
You weren't simply watching or reading.
You became part of their world.
You laughed with them.
You suffered with them.
When the final page was turned or the credits rolled, you felt as though you had left behind friends you had known all your life.
That was the magic of those days.
Then came my birthday last week.
Among the gifts was a neatly wrapped package from her.
Inside was...
The Pillars of the Earth.
Not the newest bestseller.
Not another gadget.
Not a watch.
Not a gift card.
The very book that had captured my imagination forty years ago.
I don't think she realizes what she actually gave me.
She didn't buy me a book.
She bought me a memory.
She reminded me of a young boy who could disappear for hours without anyone wondering where he was—because everyone knew he was probably buried inside a novel somewhere.
I've started reading it again.
And here's the heartbreaking part.
Back then...
982 pages in four days.
Today...
I'm celebrating if I manage ten pages.
Not because the book has changed.
I have.
Life has.
Finding thirty uninterrupted minutes has become almost impossible. Even when I sit down with the book, my mind wanders.
Did I reply to that email?
Did I forget that meeting?
What about tomorrow's deadline?
Who texted me?
The phone buzzes.
Life calls.
The book quietly closes.
Sometimes I wonder if we've become too busy making a living that we've forgotten how to simply live.
More than anything, I miss something we rarely talk about anymore.
I miss having "my time."
Time that belonged to nobody else.
Time that wasn't scheduled.
Time that wasn't interrupted.
Time that didn't have to be productive.
Just me...
...a comfortable chair...
...and a great book.
The older I get, the more I realize that the greatest luxury in life isn't money.
It's uninterrupted time.
Time to lose yourself.
Time to dream.
Time to travel without leaving your chair.
Time to become sixteen years old again for just a little while.
As I slowly turn the pages of The Pillars of the Earth once again, I know I'll never finish it in four days.
And maybe that's okay.
Because every page reminds me of who I used to be.
And every chapter reminds me of something I miss more than the '80s themselves.
I miss the boy who had all the time in the world.
Thank you, my girl.
For the book.
For the memories.
And for reminding your old dad that perhaps it's time to find his time once again.
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