Gifts

I don’t think there is anyone out there young, or old, who doesn’t love teddy bears! Real bears are one of the fiercest creatures in nature, but we’ve all become very attached to the fluffy, cuddly stuffed versions of the real thing. Have you ever wondered where the name “teddy” came from?

The whole thing started a little over a hundred years ago on a hunting trip gone wrong. Theodore Roosevelt had a passion for hunting and for hunting bears in particular. On November 13, 1902, the President’s hunting party set out led by legendary guide Holt Collier. Roosevelt was determined to win the one trophy that had eluded him, the Louisiana Black Bear.

Since he was the President of the United States, Roosevelt’s guide among other members of the party wanted him to have a successful hunt.

Collier, wanting to save the President needless hard riding, sent him on ahead based on his feelings as to where the bear would come out of the woods. After several hours of waiting, Roosevelt gave up and headed back to the camp for lunch.

While the President was back at the camp enjoying his lunch, the bear did indeed exit in the exact area where he was previously waiting. Collier and his dogs eventually backed the bear into a bayou. Before they could reach the President, the bear attacked one of Collier’s dogs. Collier could not shoot without risking hitting his beloved dog, so he bludgeoned the bear in the head with his rifle.

While the bear was semi-conscious, Collier tied him with a rope to a nearby tree. The President was then alerted by three rifle shots that they had cornered a bear for him to shoot. When he arrived he was greatly disappointed by what he saw. The onlookers cheered him on, “Shoot the bear! Shoot it Mr. President!”, but Roosevelt refused. He had been criticized in the past for his love of hunting and with three reporters present he did not want to bring further criticism upon himself.

The newspapers were wild for the story and at first tried to paint Roosevelt in a poor light saying he was unprepared and praising Collier for his heroic efforts. But the public took it a different way. Political cartoonists depicted the bear as a cute cub, causing even more public support of the President for his unwillingness to shoot the captured bear.

Soon everyone was talking about Teddy and the bear. And that was the beginning of the now famous Teddy Bear. Who would have imagined that such a sweet and lovable toy came from such a violent beginning? They were there to shoot bears to begin with? Remember?

Children are priceless, and so is the way that they think, my own children are no exception. When giving gifts my children always provide the best and most memorable gifts. Gifts that make me laugh and cry, but most of all gifts that help me to remember how cute they were, and how much they have grown up over the years.

One time I recall my children bought me a gift, it was a beautiful mothers day card, which they had bought down at the shop all by themselves. The card was beautiful and filled my heart with pride, at the thought that they had gone out all by themselves without any prompting and had very sneakily hid the card from me. Then they had taken it to their bedroom and written in the card all by them selves with green marker pen, and presented me with this beautiful card.

What made things far more entertaining, was neither of them could read very well. The card was not really a mother’s day card, but a Valentines Day card. When the joy of receiving such a beautiful gift had worn off, I wondered how they had come to acquire the money for the card. I had not given them the money nor had their father, and I knew they had no money themselves. They were only too happy to tell me where they had found their little treasure trove of coins to fund their recent expedition.

My children took me by the hand and showed me where they had found ‘lots of money’ and smiled up at me looking for approval. They had found my hidden coin purse full of rare coins, some of which were very valuable. It was these coins they had chosen to take to the shops and buy a very important mother’s day gift.

I closed my eyes and tried not to be bothered by loosing one possession and gaining something that was worth more than a room full of precious coins, I managed to stay calm but it was a little difficult at first! It did take a while to accept. Possessions are just something that you have, but in the larger scheme of things are never really worth anything. After a few years I would most probably have sold those coins to buy my children gifts at Christmas, with very little regard to what the coins meant to me.

This is because the love and adoration of a child is worth far more than anything else. I have since framed that mother’s day card. I look at it every so often to remind me how lucky that I am to have such special children, who put others before themselves. Special children who are able to still to this day melt my heart with just a single smile.

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.

My Nanna is one of the most unique women that I have ever met, she was an orphan brought out on a train from Scotland during the war. During those times there was panic and desperation surrounding many families. My Nanna was a small child and her family, put her on a train to Australia where she would be safe. She never met her real parents again, and was adopted by an older couple that loved and cherished her. She was brought up as an only child and always longed for a brother or a sister for a companion.

She has never dwelled on what could have been or who her real parents may have been. She accepts the fact that the people who adopted her are her real parents, even though they may not be related biologically. My Nanna had five children, and as they grew up they had an amazing twenty-four children between them. Over the years her children have had another thirty-four children, and some of their children have also had children. As you can imagine when we all get together there are enough people to fill a stadium.

Every year for my whole life we have had an amazing tradition, we call it Nanna’s party. It is usually held at a park, or large area and everyone who is related comes from near and far to get together. Australia is a vast place, and some of us drove for up to ten hours to attend. My Nanna used to give each of us a small gift. She would call out each of our names, and we would go up where she was seated and receive our gift. Our family grew so large she could no longer afford a gift for everyone, so she only gave gifts to the children, or her great, great grandchildren.

The gifts weren’t the reason many of us traveled so many miles to be a part of this tradition, it was the opportunity to meet with our family and relatives. To add to the fun we would all dress up to a theme. One year we had to go as fruit, another year we had to dress up like they did in the 1950’s and 1960’s and perform mimed songs on stage.

Now that I am a lot older I realize that Nanna was a very smart woman, through her insistence of having these parties she was keeping us all together. She was in fact giving us the opportunity to have the family closeness that was taken from her as a child. It cannot be said that anyone in our family of over two hundred, does not know whom they’re related to.

Our Nanna gave us a lot more than small gifts and dress up parties, she gave us a strong family unit that has stood the test of time for over four generations. That is a truly valuable gift.

Receiving a gift is one of the most gratifying feelings in the world; the delight felt is not directly from receiving an object, or thing of value. A gift is far more important than that, as you are in fact receiving something else, something far more precious than any material possession. Love - it cannot be bought, stolen or demanded but is something that is given freely from the heart to those we adore most…

I have been fortunate to receive many gifts in my life, the one’s that stay in my mind and in my heart are those of least monetary value, and very simple in nature. The reason for this is because the person who gave them to me was thinking of me, how I was feeling at that time and chose to give a gift that was from their heart.

My most prized gift was after the birth of my third child, who was a surprise arrival. All of my life since I was a child I had dreamt of having a beautiful little girl. As a child I was very lonely and longed for the company of a sister to play with, sadly for me my mother could not conceive any more children after me; I was alone a lot of the time. So I decided when I grew up I would have a little girl of my own…

Many years later I met my husband and a year or so later we had our first child, he was a beautiful bouncing baby boy, with golden hair and a smile that lit up the world, I adored him and lavished all of my affections upon him, yet he wasn’t the beautiful baby girl that I had hoped for.

Several years later I fell pregnant again, this time I hoped that I would have my beautiful baby girl and then my family would be complete, instead I had another bouncing baby boy, I loved and adored him too, although I did wish for a girl. After having two children we decided that we had enough children and I gave up all hopes of ever having a daughter.

Than one day I found out that I was ‘unexpectedly’ expecting! Even though I had been very careful and had not been planning for this to happen, I was sure that this would be my little girl. Quite a few months later I was holding my darling little girl, my miracle little girl, and on that day I was given a gift that was worth more to me than any expensive gift, and it come in the form of a simple little card hand made by my mother, in that card my mother told me that “if you want something bad enough, if you pray for it long enough - then sometimes miracles do happen!”

Isn’t life funny, a small piece of paper with some hand written words means more to me than any trinket ever could, the moral of my story is that gifts- real gifts come from the heart not from the hip pocket.

I was discussing gifts with my husband earlier on, and he was telling me when he was a child his grandmother would give them clothing for Christmas every year. Worst of all it was the same clothing every time. A knitted jumper always the same color (gray), a pair of socks and a pair of jocks. Not just any jocks, but grandpa’s jocks. Every year for as long as he could remember this was what he received.

That really got me thinking. Actually it really bugged me. It wasn’t just the thought of gray jumpers and grandpa’s jocks either! The thing that really annoyed me is the fact that children expect, and deserve something useful to them. Although clothing is useful when you are an adult, and a hand knitted jumper, made from the heart is a treasured possession from your grandmother. Because when you are an adult you see things through a different light. Gifts such as these are not considered to be useful when you are under 10.

I now know why my husband always insists on getting our children toys and things that they can play with. If you consider for a moment that children are not living in the same world as us- yet, for a few fleeting years they have been blessed with an amazing gift, the gift of freedom and imagination. They have one brief encounter of the way life was really intended to be. No stress, no bills to pay and no one else they must consider before themselves. Never again will they have the chance to think and experience life on this level.

It is so fleeting that if we as adults don’t help them enjoy it to the fullest it will damage their personality and tarnish their views on life as they grow. I believe in letting children be just that, children, for as long as they can be. Consider the world that we live in, that is soon to be a child’s reality. These are a very sad state of affairs, and why not postpone it for as long as we can.

Far too many parents impress on their children that they should “grow up” or ‘be’ more mature. Through the generations this is becoming a trend. Look at photo’s of when your parents were children, at two years old your parents were still considered babies, they acted and were dressed appropriately. They were still considered babies until they went to school. An adult was considered to be 21 years of age, not 18.

It is beyond me why we are in such a hurry to ‘grow’ our children and send them off into the adult world, before they have ever had the chance to be children. Giving gifts are no exception to this rule. When choosing a gift for a child, get them something they can play with, something that will entertain them, clothes aren’t appropriate gifts when you are a child, if you must give a child clothing, make sure that something entertaining is added to the 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.