
I can’t see which book John is reading to Kelly (two weeks ago) but in my mind I am hearing the one he read many times during her visit, When I was Young in the Mountains, and I hear his voice coming from those chairs by the woodstove: “When I was young in the mountains, I never wanted to go to the ocean, and I never wanted to go to the desert. I never wanted to go anywhere else in the world, for I was in the mountains. And that was always enough.”
On our walk the other day, the second to last day of November, we were passing where Vine Brook Creek tumbles down the side of Mount Hallowell to find its way into Sakinaw Lake, and he said, “I don’t think of us as living in the mountains but of course we do.”

What a beautiful picture. Grandpa, read it again!
And he did, again and again. (A book to treasure, like this child.)