I gave a Co-op gift card to a thirteen year old boy. A Co-op gift card. You can buy gas, groceries, lumber, farming & building supplies at Co-op. A Co-op gift card for a thirteen year old boy?!? What was I thinking?!?!
Also in this gift-giving nightmare: I gave this boy's mom a card. It made her cry. She was so choked up that she could barely talk. I asked if it was in a good way ... and she sort of tried to say 'yes'. But it wasn't.
The gift card was symbolic of the need that I feel to give something. Anything!! The fact that I picked Co-op is probably because it is the store that I frequent the most (and possibly due to the many talks my Middle Son as he ingrains how important it is to support our local businesses). Plus ... I drive past the Co-op store almost any time I go anywhere. It is convenient. It was the easy thing to do.
What was symbolic about what I wrote in the card? Am I trying so hard not to repeat myself in these wordy cards that I write, that I accidentally struck a nerve? I had better think twice before I write ...
I love giving when there is no occasion. You see a need. You fill it. You see something fun and whimsical. You pick it up. You think of a perfect gift. You give it.
I don't do well when I am under the gun to give because it is a certain date. I am pretty much terrible at it.
I am haunted by such a date at the moment and I don't like the energy it is pulling from me. It has paralyzed me into a state where I am thinking, "I'll just buy a Co-op gift card so she can buy what she needs with that ... and take the money saved and treat herself with something that I would have never thought of."
The gifts I feel best about are the gifts that cost little more than 'time'. I seem to be coming up empty right now and it is bothering me ...
"You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."
~Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
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