What Would Make “Alone” Workable?

When you’re used to being a couple, being alone is — yes, all those words.

During the two years of Dave’s progressing illness, I started to feel the weight of his book collections on my shoulders. After his burial, and the first few days of friends checking in, I faced a ten-room house crammed with books, and the pressure to disperse them. I couldn’t afford to stay.

Leaving eight cases of Dave’s family memorabilia with a historical society that clearly appreciated them felt right. But it barely scratched the surface of the process in front of me.

What a let-down, that the University of Vermont professor couldn’t be bothered with Dave’s stunning library of Jewish books and documents! The last words that professor (headed for vacation) had flung at me were, “Try Ken Schoen.”

Alone in the kitchen, leaning over my laptop, I looked at the website of that noted book dealer who specialized in Jewish material, loosely called “Judaica.” I knew it was useless — Dave had placed orders before with Schoen Books in South Deerfield, Massachusetts, but not often. Every collector has an individual set of interests, and Schoen Books engaged more with philosophy and religious texts than Dave did.

Dave loved people’s stories: memoir, especially. My sorting and labeling of his collection meant whole bookcases marked “women’s memoirs” and “children’s memoirs,” more sections for people who’d experienced…