Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Greatest gift

I'm pondering what was my greatest gift at Christmas. It is a difficult choice for there are many to choose from, obviously. It might be the Saints coach my dear Mary bought me. It might be the recliner my dear Mary bought me.

It might be the chemistry set my mother bought me, which I've written about in the past. It might be the ... you get the picture. But I'm going with the shoe shining kit I bought my father. Huh? I thought the question was ...no, the pondering was what was MY greatest gift at Christmas. No where did it say I had to have received it.

I remember this shoe shining kit for a number of reasons. I used to love to walk through a store called Kress (which I called Kresses, but there was no extra es on it). It was right down town in Meridian and I would be dropped off with a certain amount of money and a certain amount of time and I could buy as many or as few presents as time and money would permit. I went into the store with a list and I had been checking it much more than twice.

There was, at the age of six, my father, mother, Aunt Nita and Aunt Blannie and cousin June. The money was, and had been, burning its way out of my pants pocket.

I remember the lights and the smells of Christmas and I remember walking so slowly, much more slowly than I would today, through various departments. I had gotten all the women out of the way with various types of perfumes and such, of course adding some kind of powder for my mom so she would have the most.

That left Dad. I spent the rest of the time trying to figure him out. Then I saw it. A wooden shoe holder on top, various pastes inside. I had just enough. The reason it's best is Dad said he loved it.

Making my father happy has always been a quest of mine. That year it seemed to have really happened because, I thought, I spent so much time pondering. The thing is, Dad loved me anyway. If I had bought something he didn't love, he would have loved me anyway.

At 6, I knew nothing of unconditional love. At 56, with a world behind me and sons and daughters of my own, I know all about it. God loves me no matter what I present him. I can't, by virtue of my gifts that I bring, make him love me more.

I wished I could have understood that for much of my life. I tried to make editors and bosses and friends and even family love me or my work even more because of how hard I worked or how much I tried or whatever.

It got me no where because it couldn't. But unconditional love, the kind of love we're given by true friends and true family and by a God who loves us not for what we do but for who we are, sons and daughters of his, gives us peace and happiness even in the darkest of times, like when it rains all the time.

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