The Gift

The perfect gift has a way of making you feel loved. But the best gift is the gift that keeps on giving. And sometimes, even unbeknownst to you, it has been giving all along. Without you even realizing it, this gift has been working its magic for years.

I discovered one of these gifts this week. It was given almost seven years ago during a very, very dark time. My memories of this period of time are hazy, to say the least. The mind has a way of softening up the edges of trauma for us. But I remember that my brother came. And I know that my husband was dead. He had only been gone two weeks or so when my brother came to help. And the fact that my brother had come was truly a gift in and of itself. It was a messy place to be with three grieving children, and it felt as though I could barely place one foot in front of the other, let alone walk my children through this tragedy. My brother came with his light and love despite his own trauma. He was a dying man, only 36 years old, with only a few months left on this earth, but still, he came to our rescue. And despite the hazy memories, the power of his love and the depth of his service were not lost on me. There were dishes to wash, and a wild three-year-old to tame, and bills to pay, and a house to clean out, and a dental practice to sell, and decisions to make, and overdue taxes to settle, and school to attend, and a job to go to. Life does not stop for death. It keeps moving, like a freight train, and I think back now and honestly have no idea how we survived. But then, through the hazy memories, I remember the gifts, like that of my brother’s visit, and I know how we survived.

It has been awhile since I have thought about that gift. But it is college essay time and I had the extreme pleasure of learning about my son’s journey from his own perspective. I assumed and expected him to write about his father’s death in his college essays. Not to give a sob story, but because he is who he is today because of, and in spite of that trauma. And wouldn’t you know it, but his father’s death was not the focus of his essay. That visit from my brother was. That
eleven-year-old boy has carried that gift with him for all this time. And that, my friends, is the mark of the perfect gift.