I’m still in grieving.

As I mentioned in my last Sunday Salon post, I had a relative who died that previous Saturday. A relative with whom we had a complicated past, but whom nonetheless we are grieving.

But now my grieving isn’t just for him and his family. It also is for a library and the town it served.

As I also mentioned in my Sunday Salon post two Sundays ago, my hometown library suffered damage from flash flooding on Aug. 3. Now this past week, it died.

Tuesday morning, rushing water from another round of flash flooding tore apart the first floor of the building that housed the library and then carried the second floor into the middle of the highway that goes through my hometown.

No one was injured, but a family who rented an apartment on the second floor had to be rescued. Just outside of town, and in a neighboring town, Monroeton, others were airlifted from their homes by helicopter.

I have since learned there are no plans to rebuild or relocate the library. Yes, there is a library in another neighboring town, Dushore, six and a half miles away. But it is a loss nonetheless, not just physically, but also psychologically.

Even with all this grief weighing on me, somehow I was able to finish a book: The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny. However, so far, the cruelest month to me hasn’t been April but August. I am more than looking forward to having a four-day weekend, as I added a vacation day that following Tuesday, to start September and put August well behind me.

So have you been reading anything good recently? Please share in the comments.

Clarification: This library is not where I work. This is the library in the town where I grew up, New Albany, Pennsylvania. The library where I work, in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, is about 60 miles to the west. We had no flash flooding where we live.