day 4: 'tis a gift

I had to give a big presentation in another city on Day 4.  It was raining.  I had a laptop case, a huge display board, a coat, a basket full of papers and pencils, and a mammoth red purse to carry with me from the downtown parking garage into the downtown building where I was to present.

Did I mention it was raining?

Can you picture me, without a hand to carry an umbrella, staggering off-kilter, weighed down by all of my junk, rushing through the rain to my presentation?

Enter gift 1: kind attorney, rushing in his perfect suit to court, who stopped to help me carry my bags and opened the door for me.

Arriving at my presentation, I learned that the child of one of my co-presenters had become very ill that morning.  As she was feeling better, she had accompanied her mother and would be sitting in the audience.  O is in her twenties and has Down’s Syndrome and is walking, talking, joy personified.  Even with a laundry list of medical complications, even with a host of maladies that make her life far more difficult than it should be, she just shines.

Enter gift 2: beaming O, leaning down to high-five me for luck before our presentation.

Presentation completed, questions answered, evaluations scribbled, stuff carried back to car, and I am ready to offer my Day 4 gift.  We’ve ordered too many boxed lunches for our presentation, so I decide to take them by the Durham Rescue Mission on my way back home.  I struggle with whether or not this qualifies as a gift by my self-created “a gift a day” standards.  I call my moral touchstone, my husband.

“I didn’t actually buy these lunches myself,” I say, “and they aren’t meaningful to me… so does it count?”

He takes my inquiry seriously, one of the five thousand reasons I love him.  “Well, your time is meaningful to you.  Wouldn’t you rather be home than driving in the rain on a Friday night to donate the lunches?”

Sold.

Exiting the parking garage, I shuffle around for my wallet to pay the attendant.  When I ask him a cursory, “How are you?” he looks up from his register, blue eyes twinkling.

Enter gift 3: elderly man, gold cross around his neck, saying, “You know?  The only way people can really be happy is to accept their circumstances.  I say that serenity prayer every day.  I ask God to help me accept the things I cannot change.  That way, I am always happy.”  Big smile.

I am not making this up, by the way.  And while I am by no means a crier, his back-lit smile, his expansive joy literally brought tears to my eyes.

So, I dropped off the lunches at the Durham Rescue Mission, where they were received by a bustling, hairnetted woman.  She told me the sandwiches would be eaten right away, and that the kids would enjoy the cookies.  This made me happy.

I finally arrived home, buckets of rain later, to see a van parked in front of my house and a man on my front porch.  I rolled down the window to see it was one of my husband’s colleagues.

“I called ahead but no one picked up,” he said, and I noticed he held something yellow in his hand.

Enter gift 4: Friday night, pouring rain, friend waiting on our front porch.  “I wanted to leave this for your son,” he says, and I realize he’s holding a gold and black Pittsburgh Steelers towel.  My four year old has recently decided that he, like my husband’s friend, is a huge Steelers fan.  “I wanted him to have it before the Superbowl.”

When I enter my house to share this gift with my son, I see these on the kitchen table:

From aforementioned husband.  For me.  Just because.  Did I mention I am not a crier?

I began this blog as part writing exercise and part spiritual practice.  I’ve only been at it four days, of course, but if you ask me today?  I feel changed.  Today my cynicism is curbed, and I’m brimming with gratitude.

In other words, this was a good day.

Thanks for showing up.  See you tomorrow.