A Surprise in the Stocking, a Memory to Treasure
My initials were hastily drawn on … gaps in the black ink on the shiny blue and silver paper — no carefully placed To/From label here — made it clear this was a newer gift.
But what year? Between COVID travel restrictions and alternating holidays between Maryland and St. Louis, I’m not sure when the gift was intended to be delivered.
But it had to be fairly recent … I think. Years ago, my presents would’ve been festively wrapped, with ribbons and bows and name tags. Even for the stocking gifts. This one was simple. Probably a leftover piece of wrapping paper was used, but it was still wrapped with care.
The stocking gifts were the best. They’re still the best. I love giving (and getting) the small, unlikely things. Why did they seem more imbued with meaning? I don’t know. But I’ll take a full stocking over presents under the tree any day.
Back when Susan (my sister) and I were still young adults and either living at home or just coming home for Christmas Eve sleepovers, my father would still make us listen to NORAD updates and go upstairs “to bed” long before we were ready.
We’d hear him rustling out presents from goodness knows where and heard the jingle of the bells on the toes of our stockings as they were filled. Then overfilled.
“INCOMING,” he’d yell as he chucked the overfill up the stairs. It was almost always Bath and Body Works bottles. I want to say it was Juniper, but maybe that was from the Body Shop? Or was that Dewberry? Scents mingle and get fuzzy.
Susan and I would giggle as we held our own early gift exchange upstairs in between deliveries of highly scented bath products and very Marine-like warnings of projectiles being launched from the foyer.
But that was then, and this is now.
Now, I was getting ready to pack in my suitcase the Lands’ End needlepoint stockings that, every other year, would grace her mantel when we came for Christmas. No more. Mom is gone. Three weeks ago today in an instant. (Three weeks is both a lifetime ago and like yesterday — how can time work like that?) Dad preceded her by 12+ years. It was just Susan and I in that moment.
But first, one last gift.
“SUSAN! There’s a present in my stocking.”
I had squished the toes of the stockings out of habit. I certainly wasn’t expecting anything. But there it was. A small, weirdly shaped gift.
“There’s a WHAT?” she yelled back. “I’m coming up.”
Up Susan came to my room — the same one into which gifts had been unceremoniously chucked with a “Ho, ho, ho” by my father so many years ago.
“It’s a present for me!” I said, incredulously.
Susan’s eyes glistened over, yet I still remained stoic. (I don’t know how, and I don’t know why.)
I started to unwrap it, but (as usual), Mom had overtaped it. I struggled to open it but finally found a vulnerable entry point.
I was careful not to rip the paper. I had to savor every moment.
I had said in my mini-eulogy for her that “It’s the lasts you don’t recognize as such that are the most sad.” And until that moment, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what the last gift she gave me was.
(I’m not even sure what the last gift I gave HER was, although I’d been finding them around the house. Many unused, like the Tile tracker for her wallet, but some, like the electric water kettle, almost overused.)
But THIS. It was a gift in more ways than one. I’d been given the gift of time. Of a memory. Of a last I certainly won’t forget.
I giggled a little as I freed the gift from its paper.
“What IS it?” Susan asked.
It was a miniature knife and scissor sharper from Cornucopia, a kitchen/cooking shop in downtown Kirkwood that had always been one of her favorites.
We both laughed.
I’ll admit, there was a not-so-small part of me that was disappointed. This was her chance for a grand gesture. A last token of love. A sign from beyond. Instead, she gave me a to-do item. Or maybe it was a statement on the condition of my knives?
I’m grasping at a new meaning now. A better meaning. Is there a hidden message to it? Stay sharp? Take care of the tools given to you? Revel in the unexpected? Be grateful for any gift?
Whatever the message, whatever the reason, I’ll treasure it.
I hope she knows we’ll be OK. Eventually, at least. Right now, it still feels like we’ve been sliced open by the sharpest of knives and the pain only serves as a reminder that she’s gone, and we’re left behind.
But I promise to take care of the tools she gave me. Of my love for family. My passion for writing, even if it’s not as great as I dream it to be. My logical, task-oriented approach to solving problems (with some occasional panic and freakouts thrown in for good measure.) Of being kind. Of being good. Of doing right, even when it doesn’t seem fair. Like now.
I set the sharpener on the dresser for the next trip back. My suitcases are too full now, and maybe I’m not quite ready to bring that one back. Instead, I smooth out the paper, fold it neatly, tuck it into my purse, and get ready to head to the airport and back home.
INCOMING.
Four Birds 