“We let down our guard when someone we love is reading us a story.We exist together in a little patch of warmth and light.” Newberry Medalist Kate DiCamillo
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s recent heartwarming article The Great Gift of Reading Aloud (Wall Street Journal, July 11) remains touching to the core, for parents and non parents alike. Mrs. Gurdon highlights, “To curl up with children and a good book has long been one of the great civilizing practices of domestic life, an almost magical means of cultivating warm fellow feeling, shared in-jokes and a common cultural understanding.”
What part of the home is more intimate, and a safer refuge, than the bed? The article struck us at Perfect Linens so deeply as we recalled reading to our children aloud -- in bed together. All of us at Perfect Linens have raised (or are still raising!) a family, and after Mrs. Gurdon’s article we agree: reading aloud is an experience of pure, delightful, ideal love. Even further, reading aloud together, snuggled up in the cozy bedding, comprises one of God's "many heavens," which are just love -filled places on earth. The ‘warmth and light’ of the parent's bed is certainly one of the richest of these ‘many heavens’ for children and of course the parents themselves.
The perfect bed encompasses much more than aesthetics, designer bedding or even comfortable bedding. The bed is an oasis after a stressful day, a sanctuary after a child’s nightmare, or a private retreat with a spouse. And for families, the bed is an special haven where all the family might be invited in to enjoy that ‘magical means of warm fellow feeling‘ Mrs. Gurdon describes. Some of us here will be reading to our little ones in bed tonight in the hopes that our children will always carry the memory with them. At the very least we hope that it lulls them to a deep and sweet sleep.
