The Perfect Gift

When it comes time to get someone a gift, either for Christmas, or a birthday, Valentine’s day, or many other occasions, people can get quite confused and anxious over what to give. I was racking my brain, trying to think of what to give my daughter for her birthday, I had the thought, “What was the best gift I have ever received?”

I have received some wonderful gifts; electronics, jewelry, clothes, shoes, etc. I am very blessed with kind, giving people in my life.

By far, the best gift I have ever received was from my daughter.

We lived in a neighborhood that had a lot of other kids, on a dead end street, with a park at the end. All the kids would be outside most of the day during the summer, and every day after school. My kids had friends at the house at the end of the street, so they would go over there to play at their house and at the park.

On my birthday one year, my daughter, who was 7 at the time, went over to play with her friend. When she came home in the afternoon, she had a huge smile on her face, and a gift for me. It was a half-torn beer can with a daylily planted inside.

She wanted to find something she knew I would like. She knew that I preferred live plants over cut flowers, because you can continuously enjoy a plant with roots, and cut flowers die too quickly. She knew we didn’t have a lot of money, and I was a single mom at the time, so nobody else would have taken her to get a surprise for me. She surprised me, probably more than anyone has, with her thoughtfulness.

A perfect gift helps you connect with someone. A gift that tells the other person that you know them, and pay attention to them. That is the kind of gift that stays in the mind of a person forever. Gifts like that don’t need to cost a thing. My daughter proved to me that the perfect gift can be found in a park garbage can, and dug out of the dirt with your own hands.