This is a reprint of a blog post by Shady – “Planet Positive” on Substack that moved me so much I had to share it with you.
“Librarian”
I’m a librarian. We close at 9 PM. But I stay until midnight doing inventory. Alone in the building. Last month I found a library card on the floor. Expired. 1987. Name on it: “Ethan Brooks, Age 12.” Thirty-seven years old. I almost threw it away. Then I saw what was written on the back. In a kid’s handwriting. “Return this when I’m somebody.” Couldn’t stop thinking about it. Who was Ethan Brooks? Did he become somebody? Did he ever come back? Looked him up in our system. Last checkout: June 1987. “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton. Never returned it. I did something weird. Searched his name online. Found him. Obituary. Ethan Brooks. Died three months ago. Age 49. Never married. No kids. Worked at a factory his whole life.
The obituary mentioned donations to our library. “In memory of the place that raised me when home couldn’t.” That broke me. This kid checked out one book. Wrote a promise to himself. Return this when I’m somebody. And thirty-seven years later he died thinking he never became somebody. But he was. He donated to us. The library that raised him. I had the card laminated. Put it in a frame. Hung it at the circulation desk. With a note: “Ethan Brooks never returned this card. But he returned to us in every donation he made. He was somebody. To every kid who’ll read a book because of his generosity. That’s who he became.” Didn’t think much would happen. I was wrong. People started leaving their old library cards. Hundreds of them. From the 70s. 80s. 90s. With notes about who they became. “I’m a teacher now.” “I’m a mom of three.” “I’m still trying.” We covered an entire wall. Called it “The Somebody Wall.” Because Ethan Brooks thought he wasn’t somebody. But he started something bigger than he ever knew.
A woman came in last week. Seventy years old. Walked straight to Ethan’s card. Stared at it for twenty minutes. I finally asked if she was okay. “I knew him,” she said. “I was his elementary school teacher. He used to come to the library because his home wasn’t safe. He’d read until closing. Every single day. I always wondered what happened to him.” She started crying. “I wrote him a note once. In a book I gave him. ‘You’re already somebody, Ethan. Don’t forget.’ He must not have believed me.” She pulled out her old library card. From 1985. When she was a young teacher. Added it to the wall. Wrote on the back: “I became a teacher because of kids like Ethan. He made me somebody too. We saved each other.” The Somebody Wall has 847 cards now. From people who thought they weren’t enough. Who thought their lives didn’t matter. Who worked factory jobs and raised kids and lived quiet lives and wondered if they were somebody. They were. They all were. Because Ethan Brooks left a library card on the floor with a promise he thought he never kept. But he did. He became exactly who he needed to be. Somebody who remembered where he came from. And made sure other kids would have what he had. A place that raises you when home can’t. That’s who he became. That’s who they all became.
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