Dan Leaver

The Purple Chair

When I was just a young lad, back before I learned to spell, I'd climb up in my grandma's lap for stories she would tell.

Her books were old and ragged and the pages often torn, but as the words escaped her lips, my world became reborn.

I was a sneaky pirate, or mighty Viking king,

battling for treasures lost and other fancy things.

She sat with me for hours in that faded purple chair, taking me on journeys as I twirled her silver hair.

She told of a whale that swallowed a man, and a bean that grew up through the clouds, the blind mice that ran, an egg on a wall, and a man planting seeds as he plowed.

Yet the stories she told I remembered the most, were the stories she read when I learned about ghost.

The witches the werewolves and vampire screams, would stay in my head, and sometimes in my dreams.

She taught me be brave and stand up to my fears, and always be eager to learn. There's magic in numbers and words put together discovered with every page turn.

The journeys the morals and knowledge of life grabbed ahold of my heart like a hook, they glue to my mind as they shape and they bind the new lessons I learned in each book.

Time marches on and memories fade, yet one thing will always be there. The love that was made and those things that I learned, sitting there on that old purple chair.

    150
    1