It all started when my mother said, “Carol called today. Her kids bought her a Candle.”
Skkkiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrruppppppp! The needle skips backwards across the record.
Actually, it started earlier that morning when I thought, “You know, maybe Mom would be able to read the large type on my Nook.”
Skkkiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrruppppppp!
All right, I confess it actually started much earlier than that when I became intrigued with the Kindle Fire, and before that when I lusted for an iPad—okay! Don’t scratch that record again!
It goes back to September when my mother had a mild stroke which left her reason, speech, and mobility intact but imposed upon her a visual impairment which made reading very, very difficult. Even large type books were hard for her to read, the lines of the text running together and jumping around because her stereoscopic vision has gotten messed up. This is a woman who read voraciously, sometimes a book every day or two. She’s been so lost and forlorn without her books. I suggested audiobooks, but she shot that one down really fast. She doesn’t like audiobooks, she said most definitively.
She can’t drive anymore, either. Time weighs heavy on her. She started making up household projects to fill the time. Sometimes that worked out, sometimes they just got her into trouble and wore her out. I haven’t known what to do for her. Then one day last week while driving to work, the notion of letting her use my Nook popped into my head. And then, as if the Universe had decided to take us in hand and get us pointed in the right direction, my mother’s friend, Carol, called to tell her about this wonderful new “Candle” her children bought her for Christmas and how much she loved reading on it and playing games and being on the web. I couldn’t wait to mention the Nook to Mom, but she couldn’t wait to tell me about the “Candle.”
“It’s actually called a Kindle,” I told her. “It sounds like she has a Kindle Fire.”
“Whatever. It sounds really great.”
“Well, I have a Nook. Would you like to see if you like it?”
“Yes!”
So I pulled out the Nook, ran it through its paces, increased the text to Extra Extra Large and showed it to her. I thought we could make do with this and maybe somewhere down the line get a Kindle Fire.
“I can read this!” Mom said with such a look of wonder on her face. Just about scrambled my heart strings, I tell you. “So what’s the difference between a Nook and a Kindle?”
I’d played with a friend’s Kindle Fire so I could tell her right off the bat it was easier to use than my elderly Nook, and more comprehensive. Not just about reading, but about All Groovy Web Things. I started to do the ol’ compare/contrast thing…and it really didn’t take long before I’d talked myself into buying a Kindle Fire. Forget about waiting. I may have purchased one this weekend. It may be arriving today. I may be giving it to my mother and showing her how to use it.
I called Mom earlier today and she told me she talked to Carol again. “Did you tell her you’re now part of the Kindle club?” I asked.
“Sure did. We’ve set up a Scrabble game for when I learn how to use it.”
I love living in the future. Mom is starting to feel that way again, too.
