Gifts

A quick look in a dictionary will see the word ‘gift’ defined as something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor toward someone, honor an occasion, or make a gesture of assistance. But there is so much more. Present and gift are both used to describe something given as an expression of affection, friendship, interest, or respect. Present is the more formal; gift is generally used to describe something conferred on an individual, a group, or an institution. Something special is presented like a birthday present; a less formal example might be a gift to a bride. A donation applies to an important gift, most often of money and usually of considerable size. A bonus applies to something, again usually money, given in addition to what is due, to employees who have worked for a long time or particularly well.

When a special occasion happens a special gift is given and ‘presented’ to the recipient at that occasion. This may be a birthday, a wedding, or the birth of a child. The very act defines to the recipient that we have a kind regard for that person. It may mean that the giver loves the recipient. It may even mean more.

Once our physiological needs have been met, once we have enough to eat, drink, clothing and shelter, then we start to think of security. Adults have little awareness of their security needs except in times of emergency such as widespread rioting. Children often display the signs of insecurity and the need to be safe. I often will ask the question: “Have you ever played chess?” Have you ever won on the first move?” The reason I ask this is because chess takes a little while for the game to be decided. So does life and relationships. Sometimes a gift is just a gift but a present may be the first move in much longer and more complicated series of events. It may be that we feel the need for long term companionship as a step towards more security in life.

Some of us do not feel the immediate need for safety and for physiological well-being. Anybody who watches the news regularly will certainly have some concerns. Fortunately all of us at some time or another will feel the need for love, affection and belongingness.

Years ago, before the age of modern communications like radio, movies, television, and the Internet, we visited friends and met at the town square or village plaza. But although times change, people still seek to overcome feelings of loneliness and alienation. This involves both giving and receiving love, affection and the sense of belonging.

This is where the act of not merely giving a gift but presenting a present and making it an occasion and really memorable helps to build your sense of connection to the recipient. It’s easy to do. To make the presentation an occasion decide who really needs a break, Have the kids been exceptionally good, dad got a promotion, or the family has been stuck in the house for days?

Now what to do? For kids you could try outdoor activities such as scooters, bike riding, skate boarding, or playing in the park. For adults you could try a walk without interruptions from cell phones, dance to your favorite songs, play golf, or try yard sales or antique hunting. At some point in the activity, the time will feel right to make a present of the gift and make a connection that could last a lifetime.

If the present or gift is for the family, the key to success is to stay active so you can get the gang to try bowling, hiking, swimming, badminton, or flag football. Leave options such as movies and dinner as a last resort.

So gift giving does not have to revolve around a national festival or holiday, it will be doubly appreciated. Just remember this saying:

“The present should look like an accident to the recipient.” Make it look like something that just ‘happened’ along the way. It will be even more memorable to the recipient.

Later in this series we will chat about gift giving on special holidays and occasions.

A boon is something to be thankful for, a blessing, or benefit. It may be received in the form of a gift or as something that is asked for or a favor that is sought. In olden times, it refers to a favor given by the nobility to one of a lower status. The member of the nobility or a noble person would grant a boon or gift to another person of lower rank.

This gift giving or granting of a gift or boon lead to a curious saying; “the quality of mercy is unstrained.” It means that if you are giving a gift or doing someone a favor then it makes great sense to do so in a way that is not dramatic or strained. It was originally spoken by Portia, in “The Merchant of Venice”, written by William Shakespeare in 1596.

Shakespeare actually wrote:

“The quality of mercy is unstrained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven;
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes;
“Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes;
The throned monarch better than his crown;”

What Shakespeare was writing about was the concept of mercy being a good thing. Over time this came to be taken for granted and the term of a ‘quality’ example of ‘mercy’ came into being. Giving a gift that requires a return gift or some future obligation makes the gift giving of a strained nature. When giving boons or granting boons became a popular obligation of the nobility, the granting of them in an unstrained manner makes the person granting the boon nobler than their position or title. The problem with this is that in a Monarchy, your Count votes, while in a Democracy, your vote counts.

This concept of mercy being unstrained was somewhat undermined by the idea of ‘Noblesse Oblige’. “Noblesse oblige” is generally used to imply that with wealth, power, and prestige come social responsibilities. The granting of mercy or boons was considered an obligation of the better off people in society. The term has also been applied to those who are capable of simple acts to help one who is less fortunate.

As an example in the US Marines officers are issued a book called, “The Marine Officer’s Guide”, where it states that, “As an officer, you demand a great deal of your men. But they in fact demand much more of you. If you let down one of your Marines, you are letting down the entire Corps. Noblesse oblige is the private motto of every officer of Marines.”

The granting of mercy or helping those of us who are less fortunate is becoming the territory of our elected officials. Many of whom would not know what you are talking about when you ask them about a favor or a boon. One of the advantages in a democracy is that if you were to ask one person how much a telephone book weighs, you may get anything from 2 ounces or 56.7 grams to 20 lbs. or 9.07 Kilograms. But if you ask 2000 people you will get an average answer very close to the exact weight.

However when electing public officials or politicians it is useful to note that the weight of a telephone book does not change until the next year, but the public official or politician will change sometimes daily. So predicting whether you will get and accurate judge of a politician when you vote may be more difficult than getting the accurate judge of the weight of a phone book.

The good news is that there is a solution and here is a gift for you. If you can convince the voting regulatory board in your jurisdiction to change the voting regulations, you should be able to get better candidates to run and better more merciful people to be elected. The change is really quite simple. Instead of every eligible voter getting one vote, they would, after the change, get 3 votes. In order for their vote to count, they would have to indicate who they want to finish in first place, who in second place and who in third place.

The person or candidate who gets the first place vote gets 2 points. The person who gets the second place vote gets 1 point and the person who gets the third place vote will get zero points. The person with the most points after the election wins. The interesting thing about this concept, first proposed by a French Mathematician in 1776, is that the candidate with the most second place votes will normally win the election. This means that he or she may not be some of the voter’s most popular person, but they will be all of the voter’s second place choice. It doesn’t take away peoples right to vote, but it does take a way their right to vote without thinking.

As soon as potential candidates realize this they will come out of the woodwork and start running as candidates and then you can see who will be the most merciful and best at granting boons and thus is most deserving of your vote.

You never met her or her friends. She made a confession over the phone. They thought you were the dreamy-est thing they’d ever seen. That was exactly how she said it. It was sweet - school-girl sweet, and sincere. They had a photograph - that was all.

What they didn’t know was just how much it meant. How could they?

Like a character in a Springsteen song you’d been down one too many brutal roads and had begun to wonder if there was ever going to be moment where the proverbial light of the next day shone through to illuminate a better time; a better place.

You knew a man who had been out of work for a year. He had a computer file with the places he’d sent his resume.

One thousand and seven, he said, half mystified by the number, half in awe of the reality of it.

You went on interview after interview. They gave you tests. Your favorite was the typing test that asked you to copy as fast as you could a report that said the job market was fraught with uncertainty. It was like the sign on the door to a building that said: please use other door… it made you wonder just what were people thinking, and if they were thinking anything at all.

You were sitting in a bar, with a friend. It was late and a slow evening on a brutally humid day in the middle of a long hot, weary summer. The bartender said he was bored. He pulled out a deck of cards. High card draw wins a free drink, he said. In the background, a television, with the sound turned off, was showing highlights of the day’s baseball games.

Your friend smiled. You said: I never win things like this.

You asked him what happens if you loose.

Nothing, he said, and he smiled.

You looked at the cards splayed out in front of you and you reached for one, stopped, thought better of it, and you chose another.

Your friend went to choose next and, looking at your card, you said: don’t bother, I won.

You were getting dressed to meet someone. You had told them you had a story to share. You put on a clean shirt and felt something in the shirt’s pocket. You smiled as you pulled out two dollars.

You sat together at the table in front of the restaurant. It was late and warm. The sound of cars coming and going in the parking lot just beyond the tables made an echoing hum on the cement.

It became later than it had been and you sat talking about this and that. A man stopped by to ask for money.

I’m trying to get to Bowie Maryland, he said.

You smiled, handed him the two dollars and while he walked away, your friend said you were being foolish. You laughed until you remembered he was the same man who had said the same thing a month before.

Well, you said, it’s still funny, the way the luck changes and that’s his karma, not mine.

Then there was the phone call. Dreamy, she said. And there was no way she could have known how much that moment of honesty - that gift of honesty - meant.

So many times, we give material gifts to those around us. We select them with care and consideration. After we present the gifts, we have a sense of accomplishment and good feelings about our generosity. Those are really the easy gifts that we give. How many times do relatives, friends or neighbors need us to do something for them? Maybe someone needs a ride to the doctor or the grocery store. Some people may be lonely or troubled and just need someone to talk to. Others may need us to help with their daily activities since they are temporarily unable to do so themselves. How many times are we willing to give the gifts of our time and energy?

In August, 2005, my podiatrist performed extensive surgery on my right foot. I had no idea how debilitating post-surgery recovery would be. I couldn’t put any weight on the foot, not even on the heel of the cast. I used a walker and a wheelchair to get around my house. For the first week I couldn’t get out of bed. The pain was so severe I couldn’t even use the bathroom by myself.

My friend, Marianne, is a retired nurse. She took me to the surgical center for the surgery and then brought me home. Since I couldn’t use the bathroom by myself, she helped me with that task. She literally dressed me because I couldn’t do it myself while using the walker to hop around on my one good foot. When I was bedridden for that first week, she let herself into my house, brought me my newspaper from the driveway and made me some breakfast so I could take my medication. Then she sat with me so I had company and we talked about everything we could think of. She came back in the afternoon to check on me and visit with me once again. Then in the evening, she brought me dinner and visited some more. She didn’t leave until she was sure I was set for the night.

After I could use the walker to get from my bed to the wheelchair, she continued to check on me in the morning and bring me my newspaper since I could not get to the driveway. She also checked on me near dinnertime when she brought me delicious meals. She continued this for several weeks until I could wear a large shoe instead of the cast. During that time, she did my grocery shopping, picked up medications from the drugstore, washed my clothes and cleaned my house. She also brought me to my many doctor appointments. I will be forever grateful for her kindness.

Giving time and energy are priceless gifts and they only happen through sacrifice and generosity on our part. My friend gave me these kinds of gifts. These caring gestures truly bring feelings of pride, accomplishment, and satisfaction to our lives. How can we not feel good when we act on someone else’s behalf?

I found him at the end of the promenade. He was thin from not eating. He was lying in the sun, sleeping. It was September then, and I knew I’d be leaving soon enough and that I’d be unable to keep him. I had no room for him and I knew it would be hard at the end but I couldn’t leave him there to die. I had seen him wondering the narrow alleys of the old town and sitting on the promenade begging for scraps. Winter was coming and that would have been the end for him.

His coat was reddish-brown and when I put the bowl of chicken down in front of him, he jumped up and went at it. The food was gone in less than a minute. He wagged his tail and I slipped the collar around his neck. He didn’t like it but he didn’t resist too strongly.

It was hot and the sun was beating down hard on the cement. The small fishing boats rocked gently side to side in the harbor. The water was brightly blue and the tourists came and went, without looking at us. The locals laughed and called me, malaka - Greek, for, not right.

Xavier, the Frenchman, who owned the bar at the end of our narrow alleyway on the island, patted the dog on the head and put out a bowl of water.

They don’t really have dogs as pets here, he explained. They have hunting dogs, that’s all, and when they can’t hunt.

He shrugged his shoulders. It was just after 12 and the bar was closed but Xavier always let me in when I came and he liked the dog.

What will you call him? He asked.

I looked at his sad, almond shaped eyes and his long face. He seemed wise to me and then he reminded me of someone I had known a long time ago.

I knew this fellow, I said, he kept walking across the country… he’d find work and a place to sleep wherever he could. His name was Tony.

Tony, said Xavier, I am pleased to meet you.

Tony wagged his tail and then put his head across my legs.

In November, Tony was heavier, and happy. We went everywhere together. I was the crazy foreigner who led his dog around on a leash. Despina, who owned a hotel near where I lived, stopped us one day.

When they see you, she said, they say, there goes that bastard and his dog. I laughed.

They’ve got it back words, I said - there goes that dog, and his bastard. She howled with laughter and Tony barked.

I spoke with Xavier. He had a friend, he said, who could help. I waited three days while the first heavy storms of the winter came to the island. The narrow streets and alleys became small fast rivers. Tony loved the water.

Xavier told me the story. I had to get Tony on to a ferry. Take the ferry to Piraeus, Piraeus to Athens and get him on a flight to Frankfurt.

Frankfurt to Houston, he said. My friend’s friend has a young boy. He just turned twelve. They are good people. They will love him and take care of him.

At the airport, as they lifted the heavy box with Tony inside of it, we looked at each other. He barked and wagged his tail. He sat down then, and just stared at me.

Sometimes, said Xavier, giving a gift takes courage, and it hurts, but it’s still the right thing to do.

I met her in San Francisco. Her name was Elisabeth. She was a proper British woman with big glasses that made her blue eyes seem watery and large, as if you were looking at a well-dressed goldfish swimming in its comfortable home.

She served tea and small sandwiches with the crust sliced perfectly from the bread and she told me about her childhood in England while we sipped the tea and I ate the sandwiches.

She did not eat but talked all through that hot, weary September day, her perfect British accent purring softly through what seemed like every movie ever made about England and then her days at Oxford where she met, Harold - we called him Harry, she said.

She was nineteen and he was twenty-three. She was studying ancient Greek and he was a history major and he had commented on her ability to perform - that was the word he used - perform - the Times Crossword, in ink, in just a few minutes. He thought that was remarkable and he gave me several word puzzles and when I finished them all quickly, and correctly he asked if I wanted to meet a friend of his.

Of course, I said yes, she said, for I was delighted to be in his company and everything about him seemed so dashing and keen.

She said keen without a trace of self-consciousness, and I let my eyes drift over the things in her sitting room, as she called it; the commemorative plates embossed with images of the royal family, the Union Jack under glass beside the smaller tricolor of France.

She paused and stood, and followed my gaze to a photo. She went to it and picked it up with care and sighed a little and then she turned the photo, popped open the back and pulled out a neatly folded cloth.

She brought both the photo and the cloth to me and put them on the low table between us and said - yes, this was our little group. There, she said, pointing at a tall, thin man with red hair, that was Harry.

Harry, she said, recruited me to service with the SOE - Strategic Operations Executive.

I wasn’t sure what to say, but then she unfolded the cloth and showed me that it was a scarf and then, calmly, a faint gleam of mischief showing in her big blue eyes, she folded the scarf one way and then another and said: See my dear boy, it’s just a scarf, but folded correctly, it becomes a map of France.

I sat there, mutely, a cup of tea in one hand, a sandwich in the other, while this proper old British lady, erect and prim at somewhere near seventy, proceeded to tell me about parachuting into occupied France, her French lover, who betrayed her to the Germans, her incredible escape, and how that scarf had helped save her life.

I thanked her and thanked her for her time and the tea and sandwiches, and she walked me to the door and then she asked me to wait a moment.

She returned with a small square of violet colored tissue paper with a piece of red twine around it. For you, she said, so someone remembers what we did.

I thanked her again and left her there and hurried home clutching the tissue tightly. I got home and opened the package carefully and inside was the scarf. It was colorful, still, so many years later and smelled faintly of vanilla and holding it up I looked at the pattern of the lines and saw roads, towns, and rivers but mostly, I saw a young girl, in love, and in danger, trying to do the right thing in impossible circumstances, and whenever I look at the scarf, I see her as she was then, and as she was when I knew her, and I know that she had given me a wondrous gift: the gift of remembering.

Dave said he was lucky. I called it fate. Whatever name you gave it the results were the same; people kept giving him gifts - incredible gifts.

Dave was working as a writer for a magazine. He was interviewing a man who worked in Las Vegas arranging parties for business executives.

He was an interesting guy, said Dave. He had an advanced degree in Art History from a famous school; spoke several languages. He had lived on an island in the Caribbean and painted, ran a bar.

Vegas is always surreal, said Dave. Of course it’s artificial, everyone knows that, but the paradox of it is that the fake is a genuine thing. You experience it, you live it. It’s all real.

The story ended up being killed by the magazine. Dave had interviewed the guy for weeks and followed him around Vegas for two months.

He didn’t like the work he was doing, said Dave; he had lost everything during a hurricane that hit the islands and in a way those winds blew him all the way to Las Vegas and a new life he didn’t like at all.

Dave went back to San Francisco and started working on another story for the magazine. Then, one day he came home and found a large package waiting for him.

It was a big flat box, he said, leaning on the front door. There was an envelope taped to the box. I pulled it off and I opened it. It was from him.

He was in Tahiti. He had painted a portrait of this executive. The guy loved it and bought it and the next thing he knows he’s receiving requests for portraits. He made a small fortune and packed his few bags and blew out of town as fast as he could.

He took the package inside and opened it. It was a large oil painting of Dave leaning against his car just outside the Wonderly Hotel on the Vegas Strip.

That was where he was living, said Dave. I interviewed him there several times.

I told Dave it fit; that it was fate, the way he always received gifts from people.

He laughed and said that was not the end of the story.

There was another note, he said, it was taped to the top of the frame and it said: Look at the back.

That was all it said.

What was on the back, I said.

A round trip ticket to Tahiti, said Dave.

We both laughed and while I said it was fate and Dave said it was luck, what mattered was that it was real, and once again, Dave was at the right place at the right time to receive a gift.

It was simple because it was only a pair of dice. She gave them to me the last night we saw each other. She smiled her full wattage smile, the one that powered and lit up most of the city. She held the dice in the palm of one small hand, her long fingers pointing straight out at me.

Go ahead, she said, roll them.

I held out one hand and she dropped the dice into my palm and watched as I dropped them on to the polished top of the bar.

The dice tumbled and rolled, clattered on the surface, bounced off of each other and rolled to a stop, showing a pair of sixes.

Nice, I said, but she shook her hand, and scooped up the dice and held them out to me a second time. She smiled again, this time, brighter than before and I tried to read the playfulness in her eyes but she was being enigmatic, like a sprite dancing in a magic forest, and I held my hand out, and as before, she dropped the dice into my palm. I looked at the dice. They were red with white grooves marking the numbers and I looked back at her but she only smiled and radiated the warmth I’d come to know over the past three months.

Go ahead, she said, roll them again.

I shook them in my closed hand without taking my eyes from hers and she did not look away until I shot the dice on to the bar top and we both watched them bounce and crash and they came to a stop, showing a again, a pair of sixes.

Well, I said, these are lucky, or maybe you’re lucky and it’s rubbed off on me.

She laughed and leaned over the bar, propping her lovely face in one hand, her long, chestnut brown hair, draped like a theater curtain down across her neck and her shoulders disappearing towards the middle of her back.

Do it again, she said, and then, turning suddenly, she darted away like a horse bolting, and I glanced as she went to talk to another customer.

For three months we’d known each other and had known from the beginning I was leaving. We played dice all the time - roll them and wait while the other person guesses the number - guess correctly, you get to ask a question; guess incorrectly, you have to answer a question.

She came back and I smiled and she watched as I rolled the dice and watched as once again they came to a stop, showing a pair of sixes.

Okay, I said, scooping the dice up in my hands, what’s the story?

She laughed, and flung her hair back, leaned over the bar, and came close to me.

Cheater’s dice, she said, loaded with a small weight. They’ll always bring you an answer. So, they’re yours, but only if you promise me something.

The smile went down low, and the whole bar seemed to dim, and I knew she was serious. Sure, I said, what?

Never use them to hurt anyone, and only use them the next time we see each other.

She reached out and cupped my hands in hers and squeezed and said: Promise.

I promised her that and I kept them and waited and knew, they were the most honest gift I’d ever received from anyone.

Miles and miles of land separate my mother and me. The long-distance phone calls and emails cannot compare to being able to see her whenever I please. So when it comes time to ship off a gift, I want her to feel as if I am standing in front of her, delivering it myself.

As the month of June neared, I prepared for one of my most intense gift-giving times of the year. Besides Father’s Day, the month brought both of my parent’s birthdays, as well as their anniversary. By the middle of the month, I would have satisfied 3 out of 4 big dates on the calendar, leaving my mother’s birthday to focus on. This year, I tried to think of gifts she would not only use, but also find comfort, delight and relaxation. She recently quit smoking and I wanted to keep her on track and make sure she was surrounded by welcomed distractions.

My mother always starts her day with a cup of coffee and by night, falls asleep beside another. I went to the gourmet food section of one of my favorite stores and began to browse the coffee aisle. There were many tempting flavors to choose from, including Raspberry to Chocolate Mint, as I relentlessly read all of the bags. In the back of the bunch, one particular selection rewarded me for my uncompromising focus.

If I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again- sometimes the perfect gift finds me even when I least expect it. The day after Mother’s Day, my mother and I were having a conversation about her visit with my grandmother. She brought over her usual gift, accompanied by coffee and biscuits. By the end of her visit, she said she left with a delicious taste upon her lips, as they had sipped several shots of Kahlua. I know the doctor mentioned that alcohol may provide comfort for my grandmother’s arthritis, but for me, it was hard to swallow that my Nana and mother were sitting in her living room, consuming alcoholic beverages on Mother’s Day. I’ve never seen either one of them drink in my life.

So when I pulled the Kahlua-flavored coffee from behind all of the other interesting flavors, I felt I had struck gold. It was the last and only bag of its kind. I wasn’t looking for that particular flavor; didn’t even know it existed, but the warmth and happiness that overcame me at that moment was overwhelming. I couldn’t wait until she opened her gift.

On her birthday, I called early because she always waits for me before opening gifts. I could hear the tear of the box and crinkling of the wrapping paper. She was quite pleased with what she found inside. The gift brought her back to the Mother’s Day Kahlua, which then turned into a flood of teenage and college memories I had no idea existed. Although, I was miles and miles away, the coffee talk made me feel much closer, providing me with much-needed satisfaction and comfort.

The word bounty is normally used as a type of reward or payment, especially one given by a government. It is a gift in a way for doing something that the government does not have the ability or the manpower top do itself. Some examples would be a bounty on killing predatory animals, growing certain crops, starting certain industries, or signing up for a term in the military.

However the term bounty can also be used in the form of an ordinary person giving a generous gift. Sometimes the person would give a gift that was very expensive. At other times the person would take an ordinary item and add value to it. This value, of course, lies in the eyes of the recipient of the gift. Because you value the recipient’s friendship enough to add value to a gift, or favor that you perform for them, they will think highly about you. This of course has a boomerang effect. You desire people to think well about you because they believe you think well about them and it actually happens.

Way back in 1776, a Scottish fellow named Adam Smith published a book called ‘The Wealth of Nations’. In this book, the author implies that adding value to goods and services is how wealth is created. For the terms ‘goods and services’ you can easily substitute the terms ‘gifts and favors’. The author felt that adding value would create monetary wealth. What about the wealth of good-will that would be created if gifts were given a bounty by adding value to them with your personal touch or added to a favor by going ’above and beyond the expected’?

The traditional way of adding value to a gift was to wrap it. Nowadays, people buy gift bags instead of wrapping gifts. However there may be a way of personalizing the gift under the wrapping by putting the person’s name on it or a special label from a stationary store or a stamp-booking supply store. When offering a “to-do favor” to someone, you may include an offer to bring along munchies or refreshments and then do it. This would certainly stand out as a bounty and mark you as a person who certainly had generosity in giving.

The unfortunate part of this is that it is normal for the recipient to reciprocate the bounty. If you value their friendship you would feel better about yourself if they acknowledged your bounty in a reciprocal manner. Unfortunately this is sometimes not the case. Sometimes selfishness plays a part. Selfishness implies the concern with one’s own interests in priority to the interests of others. As you have not expressed selfishness in that you have added bounty or value to the gift or favor, it is reasonable that the recipient show their thanks in a reciprocal manner.

It need not be done at the time of the gift, but should be done in a reasonable period of time. If you find that there is no reciprocation after several bountiful gifts or favors, you may still value the friendship and you may wish to discuss this with the recipient. Let me give you an example.

Say I helped mind your children repeatedly or helped build a shed for you or helped with the landscaping on several occasions. I might mention this and ask if it was OK to continue with the help. I might add that I am asking this because the recipient never reciprocates. I might also mention that I feel bad about this situation. I would also ask if the recipient were aware that I had concerns about this. I would then ask if they thought my concerns would make our relationship better or worse. I would then wait for the answer and see if the recipient of the gifts or favors is prepared to reciprocate in a timely manner. This normally will allow the recipient to make some effort to show their appreciation. Good luck with this strategy.