"The Perfect Gift"

Recent tragic events in Newtown, CT. (which I will address in a future Post) have cast a pall over the nation. Since Christmas is about kids mostly, it makes this Christmas seem not very merry. But what are we going to do cancel fun for the rest of the kids? Of course not so we adults have to hold it together at least for another week and let the kids (in your lives) (yes even the grown ones) have a fun Christmas.

When I began to raise my son, alone, some 27 years ago I began the practice of saying to him, “I love you” whenever we would part. I said it when he went to sleep, when I dropped him off at day care and when he or I traveled. Pretty much we said it to each other virtually every day.  It became awkward for both of us later when he was a teen because I didn't want to embarrass him in front of his friends but we both kept saying it even if we had to cuff our hands over the phone and say it in a low, muffled voice.

I’m sure more than one person must have thought, what’s that all about, he’s a grown up, it’s weird.  Let me tell you why I still tell him I love you. It is because of what happened in Newtown, or on Flight United 93, Hurricane Sandy or Aurora, Colorado. We just don’t know if this time we part will be the last time we ever see each other. Do you absolutely 100% know you’ll see the person again? I sure don't. I always wanted the last thing I said to my son to be I love you. I wanted him to know I loved him to the very end.

The passengers on Fight 93 that crashed into the Pennsylvania field or the people trapped in the burning Towers, when they could reach a loved one on the phone what did they say to them, what was the last thing they said to them? That’s right, “I love you”. Austin will always be able to say the last thing my dad said to me was that he loved me. 

My family members never said that to each other and a couple of years ago when I started to say it to my sister Karla at the end of phone calls and there was this embarrassed, awkward silence and at first she just couldn't say it back to me but gradually over time she and my other sister have begun to be more comfortable saying they love me at the end of calls. It costs nothing to say and it could (god forbid) be the most important thing you will have ever said to someone.

I believe the kids killed in Newtown knew their parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters and friends loved them but I also hope that when they were dropped off they were told that. There was one brave teacher that huddled her kids into a storage room and by so doing saved them (and her). When interviewed by reporters about those minutes she told reporters that she told the kids to be silent and they were and that she then repeatedly told them she loved them because in her words she thought that if this was the last moments of their little lives, she wanted them to know they were loved. She burst into tears telling her story and I did hearing it.

You’ll get your kids nice gifts this year, your parents will get nice gifts (well most of them), and other family members and friends will too but the best gift you will ever give to your loved one is when the party or gathering is over and they or you are leaving, tell them “you’re a good girl, boy, husband, friend, dad, sister, granddaughter, grandson etc.) and that you love them. The gifts from the heart are never regifted.

“Merry Christmas” to all my readers from the Bailey Post / December 2012