First Special GIft

In my house, Christmas was about the surprise, buying just the right thing, wrapping it beautifully and then watching the recipient open the gift on Christmas day. The biggest or the smallest gift was not always the most thought out gift, it was the gift that you had no idea you were getting; the one that maybe you had asked for or commented on in March of that year and then forgot about until the wrapping paper was ripped and tattered around your feet.

The last few years of mom's life, she didn't have the energy to go shopping for Christmas. I would "take care of everything," but I know that it was one of the things that bothered her tremendously. Christmas of 2014, I wasn't sure if mom would live to see it. The early weeks of December were tough. Mom mostly slept and hardly ate. She made it. On Christmas Eve, we made plans for spending Christmas morning at Mom and Jane's house. As planned, we arrived with food and gifts. I went in to see mom but she wasn't feeling well.  I got her to the bathroom, but that was all she could handle. She was too tired to go out to the living room. She felt so bad to be "ruining" Christmas. "It's OK," I said, We'll just have Christmas in here." She sat in her bedroom chair and I took care of a few things in the kitchen. She decided she felt well enough to be wheeled out to the living room. So we had Christmas together in the living room with all the traditional scattered and tattered wrapping paper. After the last resents were opened, mom asked me to get her walker that had a little pouch where she could carry her papers, money and what-not. 

She asked me to pull out three envelopes; one for Jane, one for John, and one for me. 

With the little energy she was able to muster during the night, she had put together three envelopes with the only thing she still had to give. I knew that I wanted to use the money for something special.

Not long after mom passed away, I started planning a trip to France. That trip will begin in less than a week. Somewhere along the way, I will do something with this little treasure to honor my mother's memory.