Lessons I learned from books

I have a wonderful family. My mom, dad and sister are the three greatest people in my life. But it’s nice to know you can find family in other places, too.

I’d always wanted to work at a bookstore, but I had to wait until I was 18. When I found out Borders needed a barista, I signed up right away, thinking it would be a fun job for my senior year of high school.

What it became was much more than that.

To say that the years of 2008 through 2010 were hard on my family would be an understatement. My mom was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in January 2008, only to be re-diagnosed in March of the following year and again in November 2010 during my sophomore year of college. What’s more, my grandma died suddenly in our house in May 2010.

And every time something happened, my Borders family was there.

Two of my co-workers made meals and brought them to my house. Everyone in the store signed get well cards for my mom. The day after my grandma’s death — when I decided work would help me keep my mind at bay — my cafe manager Karen and coworker Marie, the women I still call my cafe “mamas,” held me in a five minute hug in the back room.

My Borders store was composed of people from all walks of life — people who needed a full-time retail job to pay the bills, people waiting for the economy to turn around to find a great job and people who just loved being around books. But we all had something in common — we cared about each other.

One of the baristas in my cafe was pregnant, so we closed for two hours to throw her a baby shower. Kay, a store manager, baked a cake every holiday in the shape of a rabbit or a Christmas tree or something else. And David, another store manager, proposed to Lizzie, a fellow barista, and married her last summer.

We all cringed together during children’s reading hour. We laughed in the back at the creepy regulars who liked to ask the female baristas out to dinner. And when the store closed in 2011, we had a cookout at Karen’s house to celebrate Lizzie and David’s engagement and remember the place that brought us all together.

When life outside of Borders was hard, the people I worked with tried to make it easier. They taught me that family doesn’t have to just live at home. You can find family anywhere, as long as you’re willing to give a part of yourself in return.

Before I wrote this column, I decided to flip through the book of inspirational quotes that my coworkers gave me before high school graduation — a 30 percent discount meant we gave a lot of books as gifts. Everyone in the store picked their favorite quote and wrote something next to it.

I find what they wrote to be more inspiring and encouraging than the actual quotes.

Because they are words from people who care. Words from people who know me. They are words written by family.