Well-Worn Family Treasure

I sat in my halaqa the other day, and had a blast from the past moment.  I thumbed through the book we were studying, and couldn't help but be blown away for a few minutes.  I was holding in my hand a well-worn family treasure, and I was the lucky one who owned it now, even though I don't think I deserve it. But I was blown away with Allah's mercy on me, that it now lay in my hands. 
This book that I read when I was a teenager, growing up.  This book that my sisters studied while they sat with my mom in self-imposed family time.  This book that my brother wrapped with a brown paper bag and wrote on in his beautiful Arabic writing, with a typo that still designs the cover.  That my sister graffitied with her name.  That my mom stamped with her side notes, written in her tiny, unclear handwriting.  That my father thumbed through endlessly, lovingly. 
And I sit here and remember the last time it was given to me.  I had moved out to my own place, and left behind a wealth of books in my parents' storage attic, too lazy to bring it down.  I went shopping in my father's bookcase, and he sat there and happily gave me book after book, so sure that he was fulfilling me and edging me on to reading more in Arabic.  He handed me this book, the book that I loved reading in the past, but had not read in a long while, the book that my mother studied religiously, that my siblings had marked with their own marks.  At that moment, my mom put her foot down, "No, I still read that book."  And I remember how happy I was when Baba slipped it into my hands and said, 'It's ok, Fatima will read it."
I cried that day when I remembered that memory. For over two years it sat on my shelf, not read or used.  How selfish of me.  But subhanaAllah, here I am, two years later, finally using it.  I love how Allah's plans for the future play out in our past, how we can't see the reason for something, only to be surprised by it slapping us in our faces many years later.