I'm sure all of the Too Cool for School kids and professional literary critics here will go head over heels here, but for me the biggest one was when the last Harry Potter book came out.

My oldest daughter was born in 1994. Christmas of '08 (I think) I got her the first Harry Potter book and read the entire thing to her. She absolutely loved it, and I enjoyed the story. Over the next couple of years I read the second and third books to her as well. Once we got to the fourth book it was getting harder to read to her, the book was much longer than the others and was not as easy to read out loud. I read it myself and she was close to the age where she could read it herself but she really struggled for a while but she finally finished it.

At that point we had caught up and were now waiting for the next book like everyone else. She had just turned 9 when the fifth book was released and I decided to take her to the midnight release party at one of the large bookstores around (maybe Borders before they took a crap). It was long, and chaotic, and poorly run and I was bored stiff but she had a blast so it was worth it. At this point she was reading the book perfectly by herself but I was excited to read the next books in the series as well. We also went to the midnight release parties for the sixth and seventh (last) book releases. I bought 2 book at each of those because we were both so excited to read them that we didn't want to compete for the same copy anymore.

There was a definite void and sense of loss as I finished the last book. The books were good (yes they were! , except the Epilogue ), and it was a shame that they were over but it was more than that. The Harry Potter books had been a real bond between she and I for 9 years or so; spending the time together before bed reading together, the waiting for the next books once we had caught up, the excitement of hearing when the next book was coming out, the midnight release parties, the nine year old begging me to let her stay up all night and read, the talking about the books as we read and finished them. From the age of about 4 to 13 it was a private little world that we shared together, and while others (her mom, the grandparents) tried to get into it they just couldn't; it may have been because we didn't let them.

She turns 20 in a couple of months and lives in another state now and I still get a little sad every time I walk past the bookshelf and see those books sitting there.

EDIT: And when I write posts like this.