More Than A Gift

My father has been gone for over 15 years, but I learned a new lesson from him today, or maybe I was just finally able to understand the lesson. Dad was a child of the depression and although the stories of his childhood always sounded like great adventures when I heard them as a child, I now have finally grasped the truth about his challenging childhood. If it can be called a childhood. His mother and father married and had his older brother Wally in the early 1920’s and then divorced which was pretty unheard of in that era. However, they did reconcile and even remarry for a short time which is how my father came to be. Sadly, Grandpa was killed in a train accident shortly before my father was born leaving Grandma alone with two small boys. She tried to make a go of it for a short time, but there were few options for a single mother in 1925. She ended up dropping her sons off with her mother and leaving town. That was their last real contact with her during their childhood.

Their grandmother was a strong soul who was raising 9 children of her own but made room for her two grandsons. She was full of fire and brimstone most of the time, but they knew that they were loved and that she would never abandon them. That was more than they ever had in the past. Everyone was having a tough time in the 20’s trying to make ends meet. Poverty was all around them, and no one was living a better life, so they didn’t understand that anything was lacking in their lives. The older children got jobs to contribute money to the family coffers, and the boys hunted to put meat on the table at night. So the hierarchy was simple, the more you contributed the sooner you got to eat. As the two youngest members of the family, my father and uncle were more often than not left with the scraps from the older children’s dinner. But it was a meal and they were thankful for it.

I heard stories of Dad’s life as a teenager going to a nearby asylum to steal a bottle of milk or going hunting for meat for dinner. His grandma would pass out two shotgun shells to each boy and upon return, you had to either give her two squirrels or rabbits or give her the two shells back. There was no margin for error, and no excuses were accepted. Summer in the Midwest brought about a welcome opportunity to fish but returning home at night without a full stringer carried with it a great deal of shame for the day wasted. Being free to come and go, hunt, fish and acquire a bottle of milk on the sly all sounded like fun to my youthful and adventurous self. Now as an adult, the parent in me, is aghast at the thought of turning children out to fend for themselves for the day. But my father never complained. And on the rare but treasured occasions when he and all of his aunts and uncles, who were really his siblings, were reunited, they spoke of those days gone by as fond and cherished memories. They didn’t have much, but they had each other. Somehow, even in that difficult time, Grandma found a way to impress upon them that what really mattered was family and the love and comfort that it brought to one’s heart and soul.

Obviously, with money barely covering necessities such as food and shelter, there was little left for the possessions that most children take for granted. My father had two sets of clothes, that was all that he needed. He would wear one and Grandma would wash the other. And they really never had many toys or gifts even on birthdays or at Christmas. But one year, the older children managed to scrape up enough money to buy my father and my Uncle Wally each a book for Christmas. It was something of their very own, and it was a treasure and a luxury. As a child, I found it odd to hear this story because my father never struck me as a book person. He never read me stories when I was a child as my mother did. Instead, he made up the most wonderful and amazing tales that kept me fully engrossed for as long as he would keep spinning the plot. But that book clearly made a huge impression on my father. And I know this for certain because he still had that very book some 60 years later. In fact, he had it on the bookshelf in his home until the day that he passed away at the age of 76. It was one of the very few things that he ever owned as a child, and he was a respectful steward of it for the rest of his life. The book now resides proudly on the bookshelf in my sister’s home.

This story tells me a lot about my father and a lot about what a gift as simple as a book can mean to a child, especially a child who has very little. That book was more than ink on pages and even more than the story or information contained on those pages. It was something that belonged to him and him alone. It also represented the love that his siblings felt for him and the effort that they made to provide him with a gift. It represented the bond that the family shared and it showed that he mattered to them. And that final part, knowing that he mattered, that was the greatest gift that they gave to my father.

Dad built a wonderful life for his family. My siblings and I never went without anything that we needed or seldom even anything that we wanted. My father would marvel at all that he had the good fortune to have attained in his life. He owned his own home, the family had two cars and we had more possessions than he ever dreamed of as a child. He enjoyed his evenings in front of a color television in the comfort of his easy chair, but that book was always nearby to remind him just how blessed he really was. Thanks to my father and to a book that is now nearing a century in age, I have an understanding of a value that represents more than money or status. Every child and every person deserves to know and experience that inner warmth that you feel, within your heart, as it warms your entire body and soul. Everyone matters, everyone has value, and everyone has the potential to do amazing things in this world. All they need is a little love and support to get them headed in the right direction.