What is the best gift?
By patgalca
@patgalca (18390)
Orangeville, Ontario
December 15, 2024 9:35pm CST
I have always said the best gift is experience gifts. Over the past few years my daughters have taken me to Vegas to see Donny and Marie, taken me to Grease Live in Toronto, a Blue Jays baseball game, Bunjee Jumping in Ottawa all as gifts. My older daughter and I have gone to the CN Tower Edge Walk as well as skydiving.
My birthday is in October. This year my daughters gave me a very heartfelt card with tickets to a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game. My younger daughter was the one who got the tickets and we went together (my older daughter contributed to the cost). The above picture is me and my younger daughter at the game last week.
But do you want to know what the real gift was? As we sat together on the subway on the way home we chatted about life and stuff. She opened up to me and I to her. But the most heartwarming words that came out of her mouth were that I have been a good mother, that I raised my daughters well, that they turned out to be good, independent people.
I told her that things could have turned out totally different had I not developed fibromyalgia. I would have gone back to work and not been home for them when they got home from school. I wouldn't have found myself lying on the couch in pain while my 8 year old (somewhere around that age) made me a caesar salad for dinner. I cried to my parents many times about my illness. My mother said I was where I needed to be, at home with my children. My father said it was not my fault I got sick.
But... getting sick was a blessing in disguise. We must look for those silver linings. But for the most part my job as a parent is done (my girls are 28 and 31), though I have told them this will always be their home, but I continue to struggle with the illness and the financial issues that have come from not being able to return to work or receive disability compensation.
I can honestly say I never told my mother how great a mother she was. I never told her how well she raised me. I miss my father every day, and only once did I ever say the words "I love you" to him. When he was in the hospital after having a mild heart attack.
I say all this because we all need to appreciate the people in our life who have helped shape us into the human beings we have become. Especially this time of year. Tell them, before they are no longer there for you to talk to. Every day I talk to my father in heaven and tell him how much I miss him.
I always thought the best gifts are experience gifts (and they are at the top), but I think all those words my daughter said to me and the words in the birthday card printed and also handwritten are the greatest gift I have or ever will receive.
Love one another.
6 people like this
5 responses
@Dreamerby (5716)
• Calcutta, India
16 Dec
yeah spending time with family is indeed a gift!
3 people like this
@kareng (61133)
• United States
16 Dec
@Dreamerby Totally, and only cost a little time!
1 person likes this
@MarieCoyle (38557)
•
16 Dec
I loved your post.
I feel the same way, the best gifts my children have given me over the years...time with them. Some wonderful vacations, concerts, surprise destinations, and surprises I never imagined. And the best part is when I try to thank them, and they just say they did it because they wanted time with me, and that they love me. It means everything, and I am glad you have that.
I agree...love one another, and don't forget to say it.
2 people like this
@Dreamerby (5716)
• Calcutta, India
16 Dec
You have been the best mother and hearing that from your daughters must have made your day!
1 person likes this