Valuable parting gifts
I was chatting with an acquaintance yesterday, and she was regaling me with the details on the recent gifts her new boyfriend had given her. She dropped brand-names and hints as to their expensiveness, and I imagine I was supposed to be impressed. I wasn’t; brand-names aren’t that important to me (unless they are "Charmin" and "Oreo"—accept no substitutes), and I’m still Midwestern and middle-class enough to find that sort of thing gauche. My people tend to brag about how little we spend on things: "I got this for a nickel on clearance at my neighbor’s garage sale, and it’s almost brand new!" Paying full price for expensive things is not something to be proud of; it’s indicative of a lack of shopping savvy.
I was thinking about how she missed her mark with me, and I started thinking about one of my most valued possessions, which is a vase filled with these funky, spiky little seed pods. On the last day of my last trip to visit A, we were walking around his neighborhood and I found them littering the ground. I was delighted, and started picking them up, collecting them until my hands were full. And then he picked up more until his hands were full, and then we headed back to his place where I put them in grocery bag and schlepped them home and put them in the vase they live in now. It sits on a picture ledge between two photos of him.
The gift he gave me that day was to help me pick them up, with infinite patience and care. He never thought anything I did was silly or trivial, and he never knew how much that meant to me. And he seemed to appreciate that I could appreciate simple things and small joys. He once thanked me for being okay with traveling around in his truck. I don’t know if other people might’ve expected to be driven around in a limo, but it never occurred to me to think about his vehicle and whether it was an appropriate conveyance for me. It was his; he was in it; what else could I want?
My little seed pods cost us nothing but time, but the time we had together that morning bending down to pick up free treasures from the sidewalk is priceless, and more so because it was our last day together in the same space, though we didn’t know it at the time. I wouldn’t trade it for all the expensive gifts in the world.
I miss him more than I can say.
This past summer, my eleven year old son was in the desert for two months as part of an outdoor wilderness/behavior modification program. The kids lived with next to nothing, and thrived on routine and appreciated the simplest of things.
When I was invited out for the weekend, it was glorious. The day before I left, my son asked me to give him something….anything for him to “remember” me with. I quickly racked my brain, wondering what I could and would be allowed to give him in that environment.
I ran my hands through my hair, and began frantically pulling out as many hairs as I could. I put them in the medicine pouch he wore around his neck.
I will NEVER forget the act of pure love he showed as the next morning he gingerly, carefully and with specific intent pushed each of my hairs safely inside that pouch he wore around his neck, close to his heart.
I can understand that; I once spent 5 minutes searching a box my sweetie had left with me when he passed, just in case a hair of his might be in it. He had precious few of them left, but I always thought it he was so cute the way he carefully combed his hair.