The legacy of the lost library card... a mother and son mourn

I posted way back when in September over at LITHOT about how Jeff lost his library card in a freak locker room accident. Ok, yeah, he lost his shorts, wallet and all the contents therein, etc in the locker room during a football game. One of the items in his wallet was his library card. The library card that he got when he was 3 years old.

Jeff has always been an avid reader. I couldn't keep him in books. When he was about 3, he started reading. Truly reading on his own. So we began making weekly trips to the library. Jeff, independent cuss that he is, insisted on having his own library card. Mine just would not do. So we got him a library card. He had learned how to write his name in preschool, so right there at the library counter he signed his name in big fat sharpee, much to the amazement, and amusement, of the librarian.

He refused to let me keep his card in my wallet. He kept it in his drawer. He used it every time we went to the library, all the way until his wallet was stolen/lost in September. We went to the library last week to replace his library card, at which point he said, "Mom! It had my 3 yo signature on it!" Well, crap. I hadn't even given it a moment's thought until just then. But that was something I would have loved to have saved forever. It was well loved, well used, and just so damn cute. And now it's lost forever.

I've made an attempt to recreate what his little 3 yo signature looked like. It's actually pretty close to exact - I looked at that little card many a time and sighed a mother's loving sigh. I'm in mourning.