Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Dr. Seuss. 

One of the many Dr. Seuss books in the boys collection.  As a kid I loved Dr. Seuss - my favorite was Mr. Brown Can Moo? Can You?  Memories of being a little girl and making my Grampa read it to me.  He would make the noises sound funny.  When my friends started having kids I started giving them a copy.  When my Grampa was sick I sent him the book in a package of a few other things, because I wanted him to know how much it meant to me.  Sometime around the time I had the Big Guy and before he passed he sent it back to me ... to keep reading to my kids.

Someone on Twitter the other night mentioned how they read Oh, the Places You'll Go! to their child and teared up.  I'll be honest, I wasn't sure why.  I knew the book - we have the book - and I love it.  Just didn't see how you could be teary over it (well not like I now feel about Mr. Brown Can Moo? Can You? anyway).

Tonight after the boys got out of the shower and dressed for bed I pulled it from the higher shelf (where I keep the bigger books with the most tearable pages).  I smiled when I picked it up.  It was the hardcover book I had given to Al before we went off to separate colleges.  A friend had given me the idea.  I inscribed the inside and had been so happy to give him his 1st Dr. Seuss book because he had not grown up reading them.  We were 18.

16 years, a marriage and 3 small boys later here is the book.  I had read it to the boys a few times when they were smaller but it was a little long for them.  Tonight I opened it and the boys sat around me on the couch. 

...It's opener there in the wide open air.

...Wherever you fly, you'll be the best of the best.  Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

...You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.

By the time I got to The Waiting Place?  I was starting to feel teary.  I was no longer reading just an old book.  I felt like I was telling my kids things in a way.  And for the 1st time they were old enough to sit and really listen to the book.  They loved the part about being as famous as famous can be after coming off a summer of being in the paper several times and their spot on Man vs Food Nation.

...On and on you will hike.  And I know you'll hike far and face up to your problems whatever they are.

The lump in my throat was terrible.  I worry about all the boys of course, but especially the Big Guy because of the cerebral palsy.  I am always drilling it in that there is nothing that he can not do - and not to let anyone ever tell him anything different.  I tell all the boys if you want it you can make it happen.  Something I am trying to live by myself now.

...And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)  KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!  The boys all smiled.  The Big Guy's smile broke and he looked at me and asked how could he do that when he couldn't even drive already.  I couldn't help but laugh and tell him that will come when he is older... but whatever he wants to do, he can do it. 

After be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea I added each of the boys names and they got a good laugh.  Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting.  So...get on your way!

Life lessons.  I hope to be reading this very same book to my grand kids someday.