| On Gifts .... I recently had an occasion to receive gifts. It was my birthday. My (dare I say it?) 47th birthday. I started thinking about gifts and how they make you feel. Loved is the word I finally settled on. Through the years I have had many occasions to receive gifts, but, there a few that stand out in my memory. Christmas 1966 ... I was five years old. I wanted Santa Claus to bring me Tiny Chatty Cathy. That’s all. I wanted that doll more than anything in the world. I not only got her, but I got her bed and her brother Chatty Charlie too! They were sitting under the tree just waiting for me to make them real. A little girls dreams came true! There was a Santa Claus! It’s what I know now that I didn’t know then that makes this gift so special to me and makes it stand out as one of my favorites. My parents were young and in 1966 my daddy was working three jobs to make ends meet. He would land a job a Chevy the next year and life would become easier shortly, but that Christmas my parents had 3 children who believed in Santa and not a spare penny to their name. That fall my momma went to a yard sales, and found those dolls and the cradle they were in for 25¢. She brought them home and cleaned off the ink pen marking on Chatty Cathy’s face, washed and ironed the clothes, made bed clothes and a little blanket out of an old blanket she had, and was saddened that she couldn’t buy me a new one. I was getting someone’s cast off toys for Christmas. She did all this for me with 3 kids under her feet. She did it with love. My brothers both got bikes that year. Both bought a yard sales, both scrubbed down and made new through the love of my parents. Daddy scraping and painting after working 3 jobs, just so they would see our smiles on Christmas morning. We kids had no idea of ‘that horrible Christmas’ as my momma calls it, yet, each one of us have very vivid memories of that day as being our favorite Christmas. It’s so vivid in my memories that I can tell you what my mother was wearing. (A white bathrobe with big pockets that had blue flowers on them) I remember looking up into my daddy’s eyes and being so exited. He had a flat top hair cut. His face was rough with stubble, he smelled like Old Spice. So vivid the memories. It was the love that was packaged under the tree that shined so brightly that made is so wonderful for us. Birthday 1997 ... I was at my Momma’s house having ‘Birthday Dinner’ with a few family friends and my husband and children. It was 7:00 P.M. and we were sitting in the living room having coffee and chatting after dinner when my 15 year old son came into the room and sat a radio on my lap. He had it turned way up and announced to the room to settle down and listen. The DJ came on and said, "This is a dedication to Scott’s Momma. It’s her birthday today and Scott wants you to know how much you mean to him and how much he loves you. Happy Birthday Momma!" He proceeded to play Bette Midler’s ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’. When I finally looked up into my son’s eyes, they were as wet as mine. He shrugged his shoulders and with a sheepish grin said to me, "I didn’t have any money to buy you a gift." I looked around the room and there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. To have a teenaged son do something so remarkable, humbled me. It still does. To this day it’s my favorite song, as one can very well imagine. It was love in it’s simplest and purest form. It is one of my most memorable gifts I ever received. Birthday 2008 ... My ex-husband bundled up our grandson in all his winter layers and walked through the snow with my sweet baby Boog. They baby stepped the four blocks to the General Dollar Store to pick out a card. Boog choose a ‘Grandma Card’ with a cat on it. He scribbled in it, on it, and all over it. His chubby little fingers picked up Crayola Colors® one by one till he used every color in the box. There are sweet sticky fingerprints surrounding the card. When I came home that night, Boog handed me the card and said, "BookBookBookBook" I asked him if he gave me a book, and bless his sweet little heart he sat on the floor, patting the spot on the floor next to him for me to sit with him. He held the ‘book’ upside down and proceeded to ‘read’ it to me, with sound effects and all. "Titty say MEOW’, "ha-ha-ha", "I Lub Yaya", "hee-hee-hee" "Dat Peety" "I wite" "MeowMeowMeow". I got kind of misty eyed as he read me my ‘Birthday Book’. Time spent and love shared. There is an undeniably special bond between my grandson and I. It shows on all days. It shined in this ‘book’ for Yaya on my 47th birthday. It was made with love and given with pride. As I look at these memories, I see the commonality in my favorite gifts. It’s evident that the gift of love shines through in all ways. It’s the love we take with us, that sustains us and nurtures us through our lives. The gift of love shown is as great as the gift of love given.
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I am smiling ... love me later~tj |
