Simple Gifts

A friend of my mother’s sent her a CD for Christmas. Lord knows where she got it—it has no production information, no songwriting or performing credits, and is in a simple bifold card stock sleeve with a generic hazy photo of something green and uplifting on the cover. On the Sunday after Christmas, I had spent the entire day with my mother, and was ready to be on my way, but she wanted to listen to her new CD. I looked at it, and it seemed suspiciously “Christian” to me, in the way that is meant by the phrase “contemporary Christian” when used in reference to pop music. We had had a full day, with an outing at the movies and dinner afterwards, but something told me I should stay a bit longer and play it for her. I put it on the CD player and sat next to my mother on the sofa. We just sat and listened, saying nothing, just being together. It was pretty, really pretty, and not sappy. The arrangements for solo piano were simple and the song selections a combination of the familiar and the (to me) unknown. Even Wondrous Love was on it.

Around that time I was very mindful that on some level we were getting close to the end of the road, even though she had not yet taken that final fall, the one that changed everything. I was capable when I wanted to of being in the here and now with her, being present and in the moment even when other obligations and pressures pulled me in a different direction. Nevertheless, that evening I didn’t play the whole album, just five or six tracks. I just couldn’t (or couldn’t allow myself to) sit through the whole thing. I told her I had to get up early the next day for work, which felt a little like a betrayal even if it was true. I asked Mom if I could borrow her new CD to put on my iPod, and she agreed without hesitation. When I left, she walked me to the door, and we agreed that the day had been marvelous. As she thanked me and told me how much she had enjoyed herself, her face glowed with gratitude.

Two days later she took the fall that shattered her elbow and her life. By that time I had already loaded the CD onto my iPod, and I had it with me in the hospital on New Year’s Eve, the day she had her first surgery. I put the earbuds on her as she waited to be taken to the OR and played it for her. Over the ensuing months I played that CD for my mother on many stressful and scary occasions, up until days before she died.

I took the CD with me to Cleveland for the funeral and asked for it to be played as background music during the wake. When I listen to it now, it makes me feel sad, but also takes me to my mother’s sofa on the Sunday after Christmas, as we sat quietly and listened to it together. I am so thankful that I chose to stay and listen to those five or six tracks with her, instead of promising we'd do it the next time I visited. I don’t know whether my mom’s friend had heard it and loved it before she sent it, or saw it on a rack at Marc’s for $1.99 and thought it looked like a nice little something extra to throw into the Christmas card she was sending to her friend Vicki, but it has come to mean a great deal to me. Maybe that’s the best kind of gift. You cast your bread upon the waters, and it may come back to you, but then again someone you don’t know may pick it up off the shore and find it a source of great nourishment.