Kingfisher bookmark

It may have been the birding fascination we shared. It might have been that the Kitsap Audubon group called itself The Kingfishers. It may have been because I had finally spotted a few of them on the way to work one day, perched up high on the phone wires that run along the highway on the way out to Gorst. But no matter what prompted it, M, you came to me one day and told me that I needed a bookmark. And so you gave me one. And what a heavy duty bookmark it is, too.

I had to wonder about needing a bookmark. I mean, what do you use to mark a page in the book with? Do you do like I do and find the closest possible thing around that will work? Do you tear off a scrap of something bigger and more disposible? Do you drape the book over an arm of your easy chair or your pillow or lay it down on the couch or the bedspread of your bed? Do you stick a newspaper or letter or bill in the crack, or do you just close the book and walk away? I know that I sometimes have two or three or more book going at once and that would make for a lot of bookmarks. Maybe I should buy bookmarks by the gross, just to have them around to mark all the pages that I need to get back to.

But M, you see, she saw a different reason and purpose to that Kingfisher bookmark she had made for me. It started with a bird bookthat I found on the shelf. Or during book drop check in, or while fingering through the new book selection. At this stage I can't remember, but what I do remember is that the illustrations were beautiful. I knew right away that she would like it and she did. I know that it wasn't something I found second hand and passed along to her, not like that Audubon book I gave her back in the latter days of October. No, it was a library book and it was swell. I think she thought so, too, otherwise why would she have photocopied the picture of that kingfisher and taken it to the school supply store and had it laminated?

Somehow I don't think she had that bookmark made up for me just for me to mark books with. I think it was meant to mark something else entirely. I don't think it wasn't even meant to solely capture the image of that beloved kingfisher. No, I think that that bookmark was made more to capture a moment, to help me remember to mark the day that I thought enough of her to pass along a book that I might think she'd like. Yeah, that's what that bookmark was for. To let me know that that thought didn't go unnoticed. "Mark this spot in your heart, buddy, for yes, I'm thinking of you, too". Yeah, that was the point of that bookmark. To mark the day, but more, mark that spot in your heart.

She managed to do that and more that day, but it took me awhile to see it. I don't think, as men tend to do, I thought of the implications of that simple little thing when I got it. The message, like many other things, came well after the fact. But somehow I feel it's important that we come across these thoughts at all, no matter how long afterwards it takes for them to be clear.

So know that that day, my heart and my books are marked, M, yeah, rest assured. And every time I do that drive and see one of those crested headed little guys resting on the phone wire or skimming along the waters of the Inlet I'll be thinking of special library books. And Audubon groups. And of oversized, laminated bookmarks and you.

Your WHMB