Youngest Fan

Fan?! Now that’s a word I am not very comfortable in using. It is a bit too presumptuous for someone who went into writing with no illusions of coming into fame or fortune.

Instead, I refer to those who like my books as readers. Even if some of them say when I meet them, “I am a fan.” To which, I cringe.

But at the fair, I don’t think I can refer to a six-month-old baby as a reader, can I? So let me refer to him as a “fan.” His name is Sebastian and he came with his parents, grandparents, uncle and auntie. In short, he came with the whole family! And this whole entourage bought for Sebastian my latest children’s book. Easily he was the youngest, er, fan who came to the OMFLit booth.

Until the fourth day. A young father came to the OMFLit booth looking for me, and wouldn’t leave till he met me. (I was on what we call in this country, a CR break, or a short trip to the bathroom.) He had earlier heard me on radio extolling the benefits of reading. So he bought all my children’s books and wanted my signature on each one of them.

“It’s for my baby girl,” he said.

“What’s her name?” I asked, my hand poised with my signing pen on the air.

“We don’t know yet. She will be born in November, two months from today,” he said grinning.

“O,” I said. It’s the best word that comes to mind when I am overwhelmed.

“I want your books to be my wife’s and my gifts to her when she is born.”

“O.” My eyes pooled.

Now, can a “fan” come any younger? There is only one word that can take the place of “O.”

Grace. Overwhelming grace.