He is losing his ability to read as he has done for more than 80 years. The deterioration of his eyes from increasing blind spots, age-related macular degeneration and double vision is a slow process,  but it eventually made reading difficult enough that he no longer enjoys it to the extent he did. In the early 1990s, he developed cataracts and later glaucoma, and had surgery for both. The surgery stopped the glaucoma damage at that point in time. But he can’t see words or lines of print as well as he could before the operation. Several years ago, I talked to him about what it was like to reach this point.

“I just can’t read as well because the words are not as clear,” he told me. “I can’t see a word in its entirety if it is over five letters long. I have to look at parts of it though I can frequently guess at it. In a way, it’s like sounding out a word [as beginning readers do], but reading becomes more of an effort. I still read the newspaper with the aid of a magnifying glass, but with books I get tired.

“While it had been developing for a while, it was about 1 1/2 years ago that it started to affect my reading. The doctors—both optometrists and ophthalmologists—did everything they could, but they could only do so much.

“I just do what I can,” he said, “and that’s all I can do. It would be nice to be able to read as much as I did, but I don’t give it too much thought.”

Three or four years have gone by since we had this conversation. I still remember how his stoicism about the loss of something so important to him wounded me. I felt angry and sad. How could he have come to such a gentle and gracious acceptance of this while I could not? There was so much I wanted to do and so little I felt I could do. Reading is the one activity he has loved above all others and it was being taken away from him.

Before we hung up, I made sure I told him I loved him. He told me that too. But I couldn’t stop thinking about our  conversation. I felt this desperate urge to do something, anything. And I wondered why. Because I’m his daughter? Because someone so addicted to reading shouldn’t have to lose any of his ability to do it? Because technology is so damn good that it ought to be able to bloody well do something?

Tomorrow is Father’s Day 2006. I have been thinking about this conversation and the feelings that resulted from it for about a week. And I am pleased to report that the angry feelings I had then changed when I realized I could do something.

My father is the kind of person who will sometimes dismiss things he hasn’t tried. He has never seen the Internet nor does he have any interest in doing so. To him a mouse is something that squeaks. But I have found that often his disinterest in something tangible can be transformed if he has the opportunity to try it—like when I gave him a pullover cashmere sweater one Christmas. My mother warned me that he had never worn pullovers and probably wouldn’t like it. But I took the chance. He dutifully tried it on, and found he loved it. Within a year he had half a dozen of them.

Therefore, I was not surprised that when I suggested audio books his first reaction was a quick, “No, I’m not interested.” But I was determined that he not give up reading. I went to my local independent bookstore and bought a CD version of a new Tom Clancy novel—at twice the price of the hardcover. I was floored, but I bought it anyway.

Need I say he loved it? My brother gave him a boom box that worked well with his hearing aids, and within days he was engrossed in the story.

It’s been several years now, and his reading is back at his original level. His bookshelves are sagging under the weight of both the books he enjoyed in the past and the new audio books that are rapidly accumulating as my brothers and I scour the shelves of bookstores for ones we know he would love to “read.” David McCullough’s The Johnstown Flood, a number of John Grisham’s and Tom Clancy’s stories, Stephen Ambrose, Franklin and Winston and many other fiction and nonfiction CDs are making their way there. Like all readers, his To Be Read shelf is full. And he is getting at least three more for Father’s Day including the one I bought him—E.L. Doctorow’s The March. He hasn’t yet read Doctorow so he is in for a special treat.  

When I join my mother and my siblings tomorrow to celebrate our father, I will make a point of  saying, “Dad, I love you, and I love that you have shared with me your world of books. In return, these are your gifts. May you read for years to come.”


Since her childhood days of Mother Goose, Lauren has been giving her opinion on books to almost anyone who will listen. Lauren shares her home with several significant others including three cats and nearly 1,000 books that, whether previously read or not, constitute her to-be-read stack. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it