So Nana refused to waste a second of the extra time granted to her. She taught me piano, asked about every school day, and waded with me through boxes of photographs and memories, trying to imprint legacies on an eleven-year-old girl who couldn’t know then that time would ever feel short.
Years later, when she passed away, Nana left me the watch. In the busy-ness of my life with a husband, two kids, two cats, a dog, a job and a house, I often forget to slow down and really see the little things around me. Bread is store-bought, self-scrubbing bubbles clean my bathrooms, and my car is a mobile office between soccer games and Brownie troop meetings.
When Nana’s watch stopped one day—because I’d forgotten to wind it again—I was lost. The children and I were shopping, on our way to an important appointment. I stopped in the middle of Wal-Mart and looked around for a clock, muttering to myself, annoyed. The children started whining about missing some show on TV. Spying an opportunity, my son darted across the aisle to a toy and my daughter headed for some books nearby. I had melting ice cream in the cart, cranky kids and someplace I had to be. I didn’t need another frustration.
I tapped the watch with the futile hope that it would magically start again. A memory slammed into me with the force of an electrical jolt. Nana, my mother and I were strolling in the sunshine at a sidewalk sale. We bought a book for a dime and a drink from the soda fountain. Twenty-five years later, I still remember it as one of the best days of my life because every moment seemed to last forever.
I realized I’d been letting schedules and errands swallow those mini-moments in my own life, ruled by the ticking of a clock that weighed heavy on my shoulders. I abandoned the cart and joined my kids, bending down to see the toys. I marveled at the latest Buzz Lightyear and a colorful new Harry Potter book. Hand in hand, the kids and I ambled through the aisles, poking at this toy, pushing the buttons on that one, dreaming of Santa and birthdays to come. We wandered by the pet department, made friends with a hamster and chatted with a parrot.
We arrived home much later, carrying a puddle of ice cream in the grocery bag and one new goldfish. I’d missed my appointment, but it didn’t matter. After dinner, we explored our neighborhood on foot, hunting for squirrels and rabbits in the summer evening light. We fed the ducks at the pond, soared through the air on swings and played a rousing game of tag. We were exhausted but laughing. And we all had another happy memory to hang onto.
That night, while I turned the tiny knob to wind Nana’s watch, I realized why my grandmother had left me this particular piece of jewelry. Her legacy wasn’t a milliondollar home on a hill or a priceless art collection. Her gift was much simpler, one we often forget in our calendar-driven lives. She gave me the gift of time, wrapped up in a watch that needs daily attention, a continuous reminder that our days pass as fast as summer storms.
In its tiny silver face, I see Nana, and in the ticking of its second hand, I hear the running journey of my life. That’s when I turn off the phone, close the calendar and take the kids outside to greet the first daffodils of spring.
Shirley Jump
Green Ink
If there be any truer measure of a man than by what he does, it must be by what he gives.
Robert South
The rush of Christmas was again upon me. I was opening a stack of Christmas cards, glancing quickly at photos of friends’ children while listening to my four-year-old daughter rehearse the Little Drummer Boy for her preschool Christmas program. My mind swirled with commitments, cookie recipes and carols, and then it froze.
Staring at the letter in my hand, I couldn’t draw oxygen.
My ears burned as if I had just come out of the December cold into a heated house.
I opened the envelope to find, not a Christmas card, but a letter signed by Helen’s four children letting me know of the unfortunate passing of their beloved mother. Forty-seven years had passed since Helen Tibbals walked into my mom’s living room. I dropped to my kitchen floor, shaking, while tears flowed down my face for the loss of this angel. And then I smiled. Helen was in heaven where she had always belonged and from where she certainly had come. My mom has told her tale so many times I can still smell the scent of spruce and hear the clang of ornaments in the living room of their house on Hollywood Place:
We heard the echo of someone knocking. Grandma opened the squeaky front door of her small home, where my three brothers, my sister, my mother and I lived. A slim redheaded woman and her teenage boy stood smiling at us. I watched in awe as the two strangers carried armloads of packages wrapped in red with our names written on white tags in green ink. They also lugged a pine tree, strings of colored lights and glass ornaments, transforming the drab room from black and white to Technicolor. I backed against the threadbare couch to allow her and her son room to unload these treasures. They brought Christmas into our living room.
The woman in the green silk dress introduced herself as Helen Tibbals and her awkward-looking son as Todd Junior. She was a member of First Community Church, the same church we attended, and explained that she had taken a paper gift tag shaped like the star of Bethlehem off the Christmas tree standing in the church vestibule. It had our name on it. She was all lipstick and smiles and smelled like the department store downtown. The sharp scent of peppermint filled my nose as she opened a box of candy canes and invited us to join in decorating the evergreen. All the while, she asked questions about us kids as if we were her own. I had so many questions for her, but was too shy to ask them. Where had this angel and her elf come from, and why did she care so much about my family?
Helen was the gift of Christmas present, not past. A reminder that despite a father who had deserted us, a terminally ill mother and the fact that all five of us lived in a two-bedroom home with my mother and grandmother, God’s hope and love lived in the world.
Helen became much more than a Christmas gift; she became a part of Mom’s family. Until my mom and her siblings graduated from high school, Helen regularly brought them school supplies, new clothes and chocolates. She even sent them to summer camp each year. When my grandmother struggled with breast cancer, Helen brought candy bars and magazines to the small home as if she were Grandmother’s sister. When my mom, aunt and uncles were in college, Helen wrote them faithfully, always using her signature green pen. She attended my grandmother’s funeral, my mother’s graduation from high school and my parents’ wedding.
Helen’s generosity expanded to the next generation as she adopted my brother and me as grandchildren, including us in her umbrella of selfless giving. She invited us to her home each summer for a feast and a stroll around her goldfish pond. Every birthday, gifts arrived at our house, our names written across the top in green felt-tip marker. I remember the excitement of seeing an envelope with my name scrawled in Helen’s green ink every Easter and Valentine’s Day. Poinsettias in December would bear her green signature, and even the place cards at the annual Christmas dinner at her club, where she made sure the waiter kept our Shirley Temples refilled, were written in green ink.
I was still weepy when my husband, Brett, came home from work. I pulled a boiling pot of pasta off the stove, placed it in the sink and scooped up our toddler, Max, whose hands reached to the sky. “Hold, Mama, hold.”
I pointed to the tear-spotted letter on the counter.
Brett set his keys down and scanned the note. He turned and wrapped his strong arms around my quaking body. Soon I was able to exhale and push a smile onto my streaked face.
“Honey, can you get an extra name off the Giving Tree at church this year?” I swallowed hard, then continued. “Helen came into my mom’s life by picking her name from a tree. I would like to follow her example.”
“Of course,” he smiled and kissed me on the tip of my nose.
The next day when Brett came home from work, he pulled two yellow pieces of paper cut in the shapes of mittens from the pocket of his parka.
“The directions said to put our name on the half of the tag still hanging on
the tree so the church would know who was responsible for that gift,” Brett explained while easing his briefcase off his shoulder. “I guess that way no child will go unaccounted for.”
I nodded while drying my hands on the holly-embroidered towel by the kitchen sink.
“I wrote B. Smith on this tag, our tag,” he said, holding up one of the canary-colored cards. “And on this mitten,” my husband’s turquoise eyes twinkled, “I wrote ‘H. Tibbals’— in green ink.”
Laura Smith
Timeless Generosity
My grandmother’s Social Security check was the highlight of her life. Everything depended on the arrival of her check. To this day, I have no idea how much it was, but she performed miracles with it. No matter what I wanted, she’d promise it to me, “when I get my check.”
Her visits to our house were timed with its arrival. She could never come empty-handed. No sir, she came with delightful treats purchased with the money from that check. My dad would drive to Pittsburgh to bring her to our house two hours north. She’d emerge from the car laden with red licorice, cookies, chipped ham, potato chips, pop and her small blue suitcase. There was a small present for each of us, including my parents. After distributing her gifts, she’d take out of her pocket a list of things yet to be purchased with the remaining money.
These items always were the same, but she made the list anyway. Pond’s face cream, hairnets, Jergen’s hand lotion, support hose, chocolate-covered raisins, writing paper and envelopes, and some “good cheese.” My dad would drive us into our small town with my grandmother sitting happily in the front seat clutching her pocketbook and my brother and sister and me in the back. Our destination was the G. C. Murphy store where, instead of just looking at things, we would be leaving with treasures.
Grammie, as we called her, loved these trips. She took her time examining the support hose, the hairnets and the cold creams. We hung by her side as she made her decisions . . . always choosing the same items. Then we were free to pick out something. I always got a book, my brother a car of some sort and my sister usually got chocolate candy. Grammie would then pick out something for our other sister, too little yet to go on these magical shopping trips.
Next we’d go to the grocery store and she’d load the cart with anything we wanted . . . all the things my mother never bought. I can still hear her urging our dad to get something. “Go ahead, Buddy. I have enough to pay for it.” We laughed at hearing him called by his childhood name.
I never saw my grandmother buy a new dress for herself, but she gave me money for my high school graduation dress. I never saw her buy new shoes or even a coat. She was always “making do” with her own things, but spending generously on those she loved. She lived with my dad’s sister and her other grandchildren in Pittsburgh, and they experienced the same generosity.
The only month of the year she did not follow this ritual was December. She saved that check for Christmas presents. Each December she made yet another list . . . the list of what we wanted for Christmas. We had to give her three or four ideas so she could surprise us with one. Christmas was wonderful with the arrival of Grammie and all her mysterious, oddly wrapped packages.
Time moved on and I went off to college. By this time there were seven children in my family and some of my cousins now had children of their own. Grammie’s check had to be stretched even further. The first letter she sent me at college read:
Dear Patti Jo:
My check came yesterday and I wanted to send you something, but I guess you have all the books you need there at college. Here are a few dollars so you can go out and have something nice to eat with your new friends.
Inside the folded sheets of the familiar writing paper I had watched her purchase time after time were three carefully folded dollar bills. This was the first of many such letters I received at college. Each letter during that first year contained folded dollar bills . . . my grandmother’s love reaching across the miles . . . her check stretching very far.
And then I got the last one. She sent a five-dollar bill, a list of what I should get with it and instructions to save some too. The list was long. I laughed, knowing that it would never cover all that Grammie wanted me to have.
Before the next letter arrived, the news came that she was in the hospital. By the time I got to Pittsburgh, she had slipped into a coma. Sitting by her intensive care bed, I was besieged with grief, realizing that I would never talk to her again . . . never again witness her generosity and appreciation for the smallest of things.
My grandmother had no will, no bequests, nothing to leave anyone . . . she gave it all away to those she loved while she lived.
Not too long ago, I was out to dinner with my parents and I offered to pay.
“You’re just like my mother,” Dad said.
I’ve never ever received a nicer compliment. Grammie left me more than I ever realized.
Patti Lawson
“Now, now dear, I’m sure your mom is spoiling him
because she loves him—not for revenge!”
Reprinted by permission of Dave Howell. ©2005.
Grandma’s Surprise Party
When thou makest presents, let them be of such things as will last long; to the end they may be in some sort immortal, and may frequently refresh the memory of the receiver.
Thomas Fuller
A neon envelope glowed between magazine circulars. Hmm, a letter, I thought. Anything other than junk mail and bills in the mailbox was rare these days, since most of my communications came by telephone and e-mail.
I examined the square envelope. The writing was unmistakably Grandma Caryle’s, but why would she send a card? My birthday wasn’t for another two months.
What’s she up to this time? I wondered.
I ripped open the envelope as I walked back to the house. Inside was an adolescent-looking party invitation with the words “Happy Birthday” on the front. Opening the card, I read:
You’re invited
To a surprise party
At Grandma Caryle’s house
On August 9 from 2-4 p.m.
Laughing out loud, I ran to the house. My eccentric grandmother always liked celebrating. In fact, her birthdays usually lasted all month, with many lunches, dinners and visits with friends and family members.
I dialed her number.
“Hi, Grandma, I got your invitation in the mail just now,” I said.
“Oh!” she exclaimed in an exaggerated tone. “Did you call to RSVP?”
I giggled at her mock coyness. “Of course I’ll be there. But it’s customary that someone other than yourself host a surprise party when you’re the guest of honor,” I teased. “After all, you won’t be surprised if you plan the party.”
Grandma paused. “Well, you know how I love parties. I’m sure we’ll have lots of surprises,” she replied. “And if we don’t, I promise to act surprised.”
We both laughed and hung up the phone. Grandma had never planned a birthday celebration for herself and certainly never a surprise party, but then she’d never turned seventy-five years old either.
During the next few weeks, I tried to think of ways I could make Grandma’s birthday special.
“Let me bake a cake,” I offered.
“I already ordered one,” she answered.
“What about decorations? May I decorate your house?”
“I’m using potted chrysanthemums,” Grandma said. “Less to clean up, and I can plant them in my flower beds afterward.”
Since she was planning the entire event, I wanted to do something extra to add an element of surprise. I decided to write on her driveway with sidewalk chalk and bring helium balloons. That ought to surprise Grandma, I thought.
Finally, Grandma’s birthday arrived. I called that morning and sang “Happy Birthday.” After the song, I playfully asked, “Are you surprised?”
“Oh, yes,” Grandma said with glee.
Thirty minutes before the party, I chalked “Happy Birthday, Caryle” o
n her driveway. I attached balloons to the front yard trees and mailbox. Gifts and more balloons were unloaded from my car, and I rang the doorbell.
“Surprise,” I shouted as she opened the door.
Grandma laughed. I put her gifts on the hall table and started into the dining area with the balloons. We always celebrated birthdays around the dining room table.
“Don’t go in there,” shouted Grandma as she blocked the doorway.
“I thought I’d tie the balloons to the dining room chairs.”
“Take them into the living room. I don’t want you to see the cake just yet,” she instructed. “After all, this is a surprise party!”
Perplexed, I obeyed.
Soon, Grandma’s best friend, sister-in-law, niece, stepdaughter, daughter-in-law and her other granddaughter, my sister Shelby, arrived. We sat in the living room, talked and snacked from party trays.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked. My father, her only child, was conspicuously absent.
“Not invited,” she replied. “It’s a girls-only party.”
We all laughed.
“Say, Caryle, I could see your yard decorations from down the block,” remarked Aunt Gay.
Grandma looked confused.
“Come see,” I said, gently taking her arm. We walked outside.
“Are you surprised?” I asked.
“Oh, yes!” answered Grandma.
Back inside, someone suggested opening gifts. Grandma sat down, and Judy, her daughter-in-law, handed over a gift bag.
“Open this one first,” she ordered.
Inside was a rhinestone tiara.
“You’re the birthday queen,” proclaimed Judy.
Grandma’s eyes glowed with excitement as she unwrapped the packages. Inside, I felt regretful that I’d never thought to throw her a party and that this one wasn’t really a surprise.