Friday, 26 December 2014

An Unwanted Gift

It was the Christmas I was eight years old.

It was coming up on two years since my Grandma had passed away suddenly and unexpectedly from a brain aneurism. My Grandpa was in the midst of being treated for prostate cancer and suffering from his continual affliction of early-onset rheumatoid arthritis. In my memory, Grandpa was never well, but he was particularly unwell that Christmas. 

 
The Peters family had gathered at my aunt and uncle's newly constructed home that year. As was still the custom in our family then, before the gifts were distributed, the grandchildren were all required to perform some Christmas item for the grandparents – a line from their Sunday School Christmas program or a Christmas carol on their instrument of choice. This, of course, made me terribly nervous, but I dutifully recited my verse. I recall my much more sophisticated 16-year-old cousin, Myrna, chose to play an ambitious piece on the piano, dramatic and loud. To my eight year old mind, she was being very inconsiderate, performing such a piece for my Grandpa who I was sure had a pounding headache. Why else would he have had to lie down later?

And then! The most anticipated time of all – the gift exchange!

First, the cousin gifts were exchanged. This particular year, my gift came from Renee – a huge Barbie poster to colour where all the black outlines and negative spaces were a black fuzzy velvet material. It came with its own set of four markers. This was very exciting but I was looking forward to my gift from Grandpa; the gift from grandparents was always bigger and more valuable. What would it be this year?

And then, there it was.

The gift wasn't even wrapped.

Grandpa simply handed me a shiny, yellow wooden baseball bat.

I was confused; this was my Christmas gift?

I was devastated; this was my Christmas gift.

But I hated baseball. I already knew I was no good at baseball and never would be.

I wanted to cry. But I couldn't, not with all my aunts and uncles watching me. I couldn't cry in front of Grandpa and hurt his feelings. It wasn't his fault he didn't know what to get a girl without Grandma there to help him.

So I struggled mightily and kept the tears in, but my disappointment must have been evident.

The candy bags, filled mostly with peanuts, were handed out, the paper wrapping collected, the aunts went to the kitchen to get supper ready, and my Grandpa found a dark back room to rest in. The uncles stayed visiting in the living room, the cousins went off to play with their new toys, and I looked at my bat.

What was I going to do with this gift, this gift that I didn't really want? Even at eight I could appreciate the trouble Grandpa had gone to to procure gifts for all his grandchildren on his own. He didn't know I hated baseball. But he had cared enough about me to give me a gift. And probably like all “old” people, he liked baseball and figured this was a great gift.

I don't know that I would have been able to verbalize any of my ruminations that day, but I picked up my new yellow bat and started carrying it around, using it rather like a cane. I didn't love baseball, but I did love my Grandpa and this is what he, a man of very few words, had given me to tell me he loved me.

As I hobbled into the kitchen with my bat, an aunt commented from across the counter, “It looks like Donna has made peace with her gift.”

* * *

That yellow bat served me well. I never did develop a love or skill for baseball, but I always used that bat in family baseball games, even after my younger brothers advanced to aluminium bats. It was light and yet substantial enough to connect with a ball to send it flying, theoretically at least, anyway!

I have kept that bat all these years and in even more recent years, I have used it to teach my kids to play baseball, much to my incredulity. I have turned out to be a better baseball teacher than player. All three of my kids seem to have good success hitting balls with that bat. It is no longer shiny, it is no longer yellow, but it is still both light yet substantial, and it always reminds me of my Grandpa and his gift of love.


The past six months of my life, I have been struggling with a “gift” from God. A gift that was not on my wish list, that I specifically did not want. But here it is in my life. I am ashamed of my ingratitude and resistance, but there it is: a gift that is a burden. I may well not develop a love or a skill for this gift, but I do want to develop an appreciation for the demonstration of God's love that I believe, somewhere buried deep, this gift is, and I want to become a better recipient for the lessons this gift is sure to teach me if I am open enough. I want to make peace with my gift.

Every good and perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,
who does not change like shifting shadows.
James 1:17