For Valentine's Day, this past weekend, Rosie gave her (our) dance teacher, Mrs. H, a valentine's card and a flower. The flower was a small purple and white flower Rosie chose from a larger bouquet at our house. I noticed as I was holding it after we arrived at ballet that the stem had broken in transit and started to apologize to Mrs. H. She replied, "Oh, no! It's gorgeous! I love it! Thank you so much!" with such conviction that I really believe that she meant it. I don't think I could pull that off, personally. Mrs. H works with all ages, from 3 years old through well-past retirement ages and must get all sorts of tokens from her students all year long. All I've ever seen her show is graciousness and appreciation for any gifts.
I find myself surprised by this! And shamed, slightly, that I am surprised and don't express how grateful I am for overtures people have made to me. I'm quick to think that a gift has strings or a hidden meaning and pause to grind gears in my head rather than just give plain and sincere thanks.
Something to reflect and work on. Give me a
spindly, broken, cheap fragile, beautiful blossom, and I'll enjoy it for its moment in time and let the loveliness of nature and the gesture enrich my day. Really.
Something to meditate on.
WifeRat is the Queen of gift receiving; she gushes endlessly and with great enthusiasm over the most minor tokens. My Father often commented on what a pleasure it was to give her a gift because she was always so appreciative. The one down side of this is that I often have NO IDEA whether or not she actually likes what I have given her.
ReplyDeleteOne time, I was feeling Mrs. H out on whether she'd like a pink bracelet I was making and she said, "I'm a girly-girl, I love pink!" She told me, "Oh, I like everything! I'm easy that way!" Maybe they do like everything?
ReplyDeleteFor opposite's sake, an acquaintance of Monkeyrotica's once threw a gifted book back in his face and screamed at him for being so thoughtless (it wasn't "her" genre). At least we knew what she was thinking! I think he found her reaction refreshing, but we are not friends with her anymore, I'll admit.