I bought a Bible.
I did not need a Bible. I have two or three, including one that belonged to my grandparents. I asked my siblings after my mom died if they minded if I took it, and they said they didn’t. (There’s one other that they had that I’m interested in that’s over a hundred years old, but I don’t know where it is.)
But I saw this Bible at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet about six weeks ago, looked at it, thought about buying it for reasons I will go into, didn’t for very sensible reasons which I will also go into, and then when I went back it was gone. On Friday, after my dad’s death, I went to a cemetery to walk around and be by myself, and I stopped at Ollie’s. They had reorganized the Bible section, the Bible was there, and I bought it.
The Bible in question is called the Simple Faith Bible, a New Revised Standard translation augmented with prayers and reflections from the late President Jimmy Carter.
My parents liked Jimmy Carter, though neither voted for him. Both voted for Gerald Ford in 1976, and they both ultimately voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980, though my mom would, over the years, say that she really wanted to vote for John Anderson, but that would be throwing her vote away. Time and his post-presidency changed their minds on Carter, and I think in later years they both would have told their younger selves they really should vote for Carter.
I was in Lynchburg visiting them in December 2024 when Carter died. My mom spent much of the afternoon and evening watching the coverage on MSNBC, later switching to CNN just to see different faces. My dad was a little weak–he’d been in the hospital for two weeks in December, for reasons I remain unclear about, and he’d been released on Christmas Eve–and he turned in an hour or two after dinner.
My mom had talked for years about attending Carter’s viewing at the Capitol whenever he passed away. By the time he did, she wasn’t in any physical condition to stand in line for hours, especially not in the wintry temperatures we had at the time.
When I saw the Simply Faith Bible at Ollie’s six weeks ago, I thought of my mom, and I thought about buying it for her.
I think she would have liked it. She probably would have asked why I bought it. I might have needed to explain my thinking. I’m not sure she would have used it. Ultimately, I think she would have appreciated it. Odd, but appreciated.
But I put it back on the shelf. It wasn’t something I needed. Being unemployed, it wasn’t something I could justify buying, either.
Still, when I’d go back to Ollie’s, I would see it on the shelf, I’d think about it, and I’d put it back. Then, one day, it wasn’t there any more. I’d only ever seen the one copy.
Friday morning my dad died. It was a strange day, I went out, I walked around a local cemetery for an hour, and when I saw the Simple Faith Bible on the shelf at Ollie’s after, buying it felt like the right thing to do. I knew I was buying it because of them.
Yesterday I went to the grocery store, and there’s a charity shop in the shopping center. I didn’t really need anything, but I looked around, including through their CDs. I found Steve Martin’s album, and there was an album from Canadian Celtic rock band Enter the Haggis, specifically their debut album, Let the Wind Blow High, which I did not have.
There was also a Christmas album from Colonial Williamsburg, Christmas Music from Williamsburg.
I didn’t even pause to think about this. It went into the pile of CDs that I was thinking I would buy, along with the Steve Martin and Enter the Haggis albums, because I knew my parents would have liked it.
My mom went to Colonial Williamsburg the first time when she was a child. My dad didn’t go until 2013, and they had a good time, as far as I know. I’ve seen photos from the trip, and it looks like a good time was has. The day Jimmy Carter died, they talked about going back to Colonial Williamsburg in 2025, which sadly did not happen. I know my dad bought a Colonial Williamsburg baseball cap, and he brought a replica 18th-century map of the Chesapeake Bay area which was framed and hung on the wall in their television room.
I’ve never been to Colonial Williamsburg, though I have a directory of podcasts stretching back to about 2006, and I was a member for many years; I enjoyed reading their historical magazine, and I got their annual Christmas ornament for my mom’s Christmas trees.
The album, which I listened to last night, because it’s never too early for Christmas music, features Christmas music that would have been played in pre-Revolutionary Williamsburg, on replica 18th-century instruments at Bruton Parish Church. Among the songs on the album were two versions of “Greensleeves” and “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night,” all of which I thought were well done. It’s a lovely album — recorded in 1981! — and I know they would have liked this.
It occurs to me now that I’m not sure if they had a CD player….
The actor Andrew Garfield said on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show several years ago that grief is “unexpressed love” that we are unable to share.
Garfield also spoke with Sesame Street‘s Elmo about grief and love, but we do not speak of the Red Devil here.
Giving gifts is part of my love language. Fundamentally, these gifts are theirs, not mine. Christmas Music from Williamsburg will go into my collection. The Simple Faith Bible I am unsure about, but I’ve not sat down with it and seen what it has to offer, either. I did peel the sticker from the cover, though.
I will probably always want to buy gifts for my parents, even though they are no longer here to receive them. Or I will think about buying them something, like a quilting magazine at the grocery store. Someday this feeling may subside, or even pass, but that is not this day.