On November 25, when I woke in the barrack, I lay there on my little cot beneath the horsehair blanket and thought about being eleven. I was practically a grown-up, I told myself, and I would act accordingly when Grandma and Grandpa awoke. I didn't want them to feel bad because they couldn't give me a present.
So I dressed quickly and tiptoed out quietly. I ran across the frosty dirt road to the barrack marked “Women's Bathroom and Shower,” washed, combed my hair and took my time, even though it was chilly, before returning to the barrack. But finally, I returned.
“Good morning, sweetheart. Happy birthday,” Grandfather greeted me.
“Thank you. But I would rather forget about birthdays now,” I replied, squirming in his generous hug.
“You are too young to forget about birthdays,” Grandmother said. “Besides, who would I give this present to if birthdays are to be forgotten?”
“Present?” I looked at her surprised, as she reached into her pocket and pulled something out.
“Happy birthday, honey. It's not much of a present, but I thought you might enjoy having Cilike back on your eleventh birthday,” she said with tears in her eyes.
“My old Cilike book! But I thought it was left behind with all our other things,” I exclaimed, hugging the book to my chest, tears of joy welling up in my eyes.
“Well, it almost was. But when we had to leave so quickly in the middle of the night, I grabbed it, along with my prayer book, and stuck it in my pocket. I knew how much you loved that book; I couldn't bear to leave it behind. Happy birthday, honey. I'm sorry it's not a new book, but I hope you like having it back.”
“Oh, thank you, Grandma. Having this book again means so much to me. So very much,” I said, hugging her, tears streaming down my cheeks. “It's the best birthday present I ever received!”
And it truly was, because I realized that day how blessed I was.
Gifts of the heart are always the best gifts. They are true gifts of love.
Renie Burghardt
D
ost thou love life? Then do not squander time,
for that's what life is made of.
Benjamin Franklin
I was late. Again. My fancy digital watch was losing twenty minutes a day. I'd made three trips to the store that week and every time forgot to buy a new battery. A mom on a constant schedule, I needed an accurate timepiece, so I grabbed the only other watch I owned, a delicate silver one my grandmother left me when she died.
Nana's watch was small with a diamond-encircled face and a sliver of a band. It was beautiful and petite, just like she was. I'd always loved it but rarely wore it. It was the old-fashioned, battery-free kind that needed winding each night. For me, a person who had trouble remembering to feed the cats, wearing a watch requiring any degree of upkeep was a bad idea.
The first few days I wore Nana's watch, I kept forgetting to wind it and still ended up late for everything. But by week's end, its elfin face and ticking second hand were as familiar to me as the feel of Nana's hand in mine when I was a child.
Wearing the watch wrapped me in memories of her. She used to take regular walks around the yard, just to see the loganberry trees in bloom. After dinner, she and Grandpa would walk me down to the 7-11 for a packet of M&M'S. We spent countless afternoons strolling downtown, window-shopping, and dreaming of things to buy and adventures we'd have someday.
Nana appreciated the value of time. Her son, Bobby, died when he was eight, in a tragic accident that left a measure of perpetual sadness in Nana's eyes. In 1976, Nana herself slipped through death's grasp when she had a brain tumor removed successfully.
So Nana refused to waste a second of the extra time granted to her. She taught me piano, asked about every school day, and waded with me through boxes of photographs and memories, trying to imprint legacies on an eleven-year-old girl who couldn't know then that time would ever feel short.
Years later, when she passed away, Nana left me the watch. In the busy-ness of my life with a husband, two kids, two cats, a dog, a job and a house, I often forget to slow down and really see the little things around me. Bread is store-bought, self-scrubbing bubbles clean my bathrooms, and my car is a mobile office between soccer games and Brownie troop meetings.
When Nana's watch stopped one dayâbecause I'd forgotten to wind it againâI was lost. The children and I were shopping, on our way to an important appointment. I stopped in the middle of Wal-Mart and looked around for a clock, muttering to myself, annoyed. The children started whining about missing some show on TV. Spying an opportunity, my son darted across the aisle to a toy and my daughter headed for some books nearby. I had melting ice cream in the cart, cranky kids and someplace I had to be. I didn't need another frustration.
I tapped the watch with the futile hope that it would magically start again. A memory slammed into me with the force of an electrical jolt. Nana, my mother and I were strolling in the sunshine at a sidewalk sale. We bought a book for a dime and a drink from the soda fountain. Twenty-five years later, I still remember it as one of the best days of my life because every moment seemed to last forever.
I realized I'd been letting schedules and errands swallow those mini-moments in my own life, ruled by the ticking of a clock that weighed heavy on my shoulders. I abandoned the cart and joined my kids, bending down to see the toys. I marveled at the latest Buzz Lightyear and a colorful new Harry Potter book. Hand in hand, the kids and I ambled through the aisles, poking at this toy, pushing the buttons on that one, dreaming of Santa and birthdays to come. We wandered by the pet department, made friends with a hamster and chatted with a parrot.
We arrived home much later, carrying a puddle of ice cream in the grocery bag and one new goldfish. I'd missed my appointment, but it didn't matter. After dinner, we explored our neighborhood on foot, hunting for squirrels and rabbits in the summer evening light. We fed the ducks at the pond, soared through the air on swings and played a rousing game of tag. We were exhausted but laughing. And we all had another happy memory to hang onto.
That night, while I turned the tiny knob to wind Nana's watch, I realized why my grandmother had left me this particular piece of jewelry. Her legacy wasn't a milliondollar home on a hill or a priceless art collection. Her gift was much simpler, one we often forget in our calendar-driven lives. She gave me the gift of time, wrapped up in a watch that needs daily attention, a continuous reminder that our days pass as fast as summer storms.
In its tiny silver face, I see Nana, and in the ticking of its second hand, I hear the running journey of my life. That's when I turn off the phone, close the calendar and take the kids outside to greet the first daffodils of spring.
Shirley Jump
I
f there be any truer measure of a man than by
what he does, it must be by what he gives.
Robert South
The rush of Christmas was again upon me. I was opening a stack of Christmas cards, glancing quickly at photos of friends' children while listening to my four-year-old daughter rehearse the
Little Drummer Boy
for her preschool Christmas program. My mind swirled with commitments, cookie recipes and carols, and then it froze.
Staring at the letter in my hand, I couldn't draw oxygen.
My ears burned as if I had just come out of the December cold into a heated house.
I opened the envelope to find, not a Christmas card, but a letter signed by Helen's four children letting me know of the unfortunate passing of their beloved mother. Forty-seven years had passed since Helen Tibbals walked into my mom's living room. I dropped to my kitchen floor, shaking, while tears flowed down my face for the loss of this angel. And then I smiled. Helen was in heaven where she had always belonged and from where she certainly had come. My mom has told her tale so many times I can still smell the scent of spruce and hear the clang of ornaments in the living room of their house on Hollywood Place:
We heard the echo of someone knocking. Grandma opened
the squeaky front door of her small home, where my three
brothers, my sister, my mother and I lived. A slim redheaded
woman and her teenage boy stood smiling at us. I watched in
awe as the two strangers carried armloads of packages
wrapped in red with our names written on white tags in green
ink. They also lugged a pine tree, strings of colored lights and
glass ornaments, transforming the drab room from black and
white to Technicolor. I backed against the threadbare couch to
allow her and her son room to unload these treasures. They
brought Christmas into our living room.
The woman in the green silk dress introduced herself as
Helen Tibbals and her awkward-looking son as Todd Junior.
She was a member of First Community Church, the same
church we attended, and explained that she had taken a paper
gift tag shaped like the star of Bethlehem off the Christmas
tree standing in the church vestibule. It had our name on it.
She was all lipstick and smiles and smelled like the department
store downtown. The sharp scent of peppermint filled
my nose as she opened a box of candy canes and invited us to
join in decorating the evergreen. All the while, she asked questions
about us kids as if we were her own. I had so many
questions for her, but was too shy to ask them. Where had
this angel and her elf come from, and why did she care so
much about my family?
Helen was the gift of Christmas present, not past. A
reminder that despite a father who had deserted us, a terminally
ill mother and the fact that all five of us lived in a two-bedroom
home with my mother and grandmother, God's hope
and love lived in the world.
Helen became much more than a Christmas gift; she became a part of Mom's family. Until my mom and her siblings graduated from high school, Helen regularly brought them school supplies, new clothes and chocolates. She even sent them to summer camp each year. When my grandmother struggled with breast cancer, Helen brought candy bars and magazines to the small home as if she were Grandmother's sister. When my mom, aunt and uncles were in college, Helen wrote them faithfully, always using her signature green pen. She attended my grandmother's funeral, my mother's graduation from high school and my parents' wedding.
Helen's generosity expanded to the next generation as she adopted my brother and me as grandchildren, including us in her umbrella of selfless giving. She invited us to her home each summer for a feast and a stroll around her goldfish pond. Every birthday, gifts arrived at our house, our names written across the top in green felt-tip marker. I remember the excitement of seeing an envelope with my name scrawled in Helen's green ink every Easter and Valentine's Day. Poinsettias in December would bear her green signature, and even the place cards at the annual Christmas dinner at her club, where she made sure the waiter kept our Shirley Temples refilled, were written in green ink.
I was still weepy when my husband, Brett, came home from work. I pulled a boiling pot of pasta off the stove, placed it in the sink and scooped up our toddler, Max, whose hands reached to the sky. “Hold, Mama, hold.”
I pointed to the tear-spotted letter on the counter.
Brett set his keys down and scanned the note. He turned and wrapped his strong arms around my quaking body. Soon I was able to exhale and push a smile onto my streaked face.
“Honey, can you get an extra name off the Giving Tree at church this year?” I swallowed hard, then continued. “Helen came into my mom's life by picking her name from a tree. I would like to follow her example.”
“Of course,” he smiled and kissed me on the tip of my nose.
The next day when Brett came home from work, he pulled two yellow pieces of paper cut in the shapes of mittens from the pocket of his parka.
“The directions said to put our name on the half of the tag still hanging on the tree so the church would know who was responsible for that gift,” Brett explained while easing his briefcase off his shoulder. “I guess that way no child will go unaccounted for.”
I nodded while drying my hands on the holly-embroidered towel by the kitchen sink.
“I wrote B. Smith on this tag, our tag,” he said, holding up one of the canary-colored cards. “And on this mitten,” my husband's turquoise eyes twinkled, “I wrote âH. Tibbals'â in green ink.”
Laura Smith
My grandmother's Social Security check was the highlight of her life. Everything depended on the arrival of her check. To this day, I have no idea how much it was, but she performed miracles with it. No matter what I wanted, she'd promise it to me, “when I get my check.”
Her visits to our house were timed with its arrival. She could never come empty-handed. No sir, she came with delightful treats purchased with the money from that check. My dad would drive to Pittsburgh to bring her to our house two hours north. She'd emerge from the car laden with red licorice, cookies, chipped ham, potato chips, pop and her small blue suitcase. There was a small present for each of us, including my parents. After distributing her gifts, she'd take out of her pocket a list of things yet to be purchased with the remaining money.