Heidi Stevens: Instead of a wedding registry, they asked for children's books. And then gave them all away
This is a love story about a couple who found each other a little later in life, after their kids were grown, after their first marriages ended, after life threw a few unexpected twists their way.
But it's also a love story about books. Children's books, specifically.
First, the couple.
Katy Coffey is a delightful, hilarious, artistic force for good in the world. We first met years ago at a brunch hosted by a mutual friend. Coffey was raising two kids as a single mom. I was raising two kids as a single mom. We bonded immediately and then didn't talk for years, as single moms raising two kids are wont to do.
But we stayed connected on social media and I watched her posts and photos over the last couple of years start to include, here and there, a tall, handsome, smiling guy named Brian. One day last summer, I ran into them walking along Michigan Avenue. I got to meet tall, handsome, smiling Brian Werle (he has a last name) in person. They looked like they were in love. (You can tell.) We learned that we now live only a few blocks apart; she had sold her house in the suburbs when her kids, Rosie and Beck, were grown and off doing their own things.
In March, Coffey posted a photo on Facebook from the Cook County clerk's office. She and Werle were holding up a marriage license. (Plot twist!)
They were married two weeks later, on Coffey's birthday. Her son, Beck, and his childhood friend Stas sang 'All You Need is Love' to the tune of their own guitars.
I scrolled through the posts and savored the abundant joy because I love happy endings and I believe so strongly in new beginnings and also there's nothing more hopeful than a wedding. We so need hopeful right now.
And then I saw photos of children's books. Dozens and dozens of children's books, displayed on a table, their joyful, colorful, playful covers just begging to be cracked open.
Now, the other love story.
Instead of wedding gifts, Coffey and Werle asked for children's books, which they would donate to a place that would put them in kids' hands and ignite kids' wonder and send kids on adventures that will forever shape who they are and how they go through the world.
'When my kids were growing up, we read obsessively,' Coffey said. 'Every day. Every night.'
Rosie, Coffey's daughter, has 'Harold and the Purple Crayon' and 'Strega Nona' tattoos, inspired by a couple of her favorite books from childhood. Coffey has a storage unit filled with boxes and boxes of children's books, waiting (patiently, she's quick to add) to be read to grandchildren.
'Reading was really important in both of our households,' Coffey continued, 'and we really felt like there was some kind of connection there.'
Through Rosie, who now works for Start Early, a nonprofit focused on early childhood, Coffey and Werle connected with Educare, a child care center that serves children age 6 weeks to 5 years in Chicago's South Side Washington Park neighborhood. They asked Educare for a wish list of children's books, and Educare happily obliged.
Next they reached out to Women and Children First, an independent bookstore in Chicago's Andersonville neighborhood on the North Side, and asked for a list of recommendations. Then Coffey and Werle did a little research and wishing of their own and, combining all three lists, built a registry, of sorts. Only instead of dishes and bedding, it was 'The Rainbow Fish' and 'The Color Monster' and 'Julian is a Mermaid' and 'Being You.'
In their wedding invitation, they included a QR code to purchase books from Women and Children First, which shipped the books straight to Coffey and Werle's condo. Then Coffey and Werle brought a bunch of the books to the wedding venue and displayed them on a table with the guests' place cards.
A few days later, they delivered 62 books to Educare.
'It felt really good,' Werle said.
I love this little slice of kindness in a world that could use some right now. I love that a whole bunch of kids were just gifted a sense of belonging. I love that gift as a celebration of finding where your own heart belongs.
'What we want and we need,' Coffey said, 'is for the next generation to feel loved and to feel celebrated and to feel proud of their diversity and to feel like they've been seen.'
What better way to do all that than with piles and piles of children's books?
Talk about a happy, hopeful ending. And beginning.
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