NO MORE WAITING TO ENJOY THOSE TREASURED GIFTS

~ Posted 5 November 2015 ~

Oh goodness me I do this all the time!  If someone gives me something really special as a gift, I often save it for months before I use it, just to keep the magic of it alive in me.  I love meaningful gifts and lovely smelling gifts, or pretty looking colourful, sparkling gifts... I guess that's "Patty"... she likes to hold onto such beautiful treasures for as long as possible. 
 
Nothing was really mine when I was a child.  Mother used to take everything I loved away.  We were never allowed to love anything or anyone more than her.  She made herself our god and we had to worship her above all else...
 
So many losses along the way... far too many... 
 
In a roundabout way I wonder, is she still taking away?  Taking away the carefree moments I should have to use and enjoy my treasures when I receive them instead of storing them for those elusive “better days”...
 
Maybe one day those “better days” don't come, and my children find my lovely unused treasures still hiding in my cupboard when they are cleaning up after I'm gone.
 
I think I need to use those treasures when I get them... enjoy them in the moment instead of storing them in a dark closet for fear of losing them or just not having them anymore.
 
And even worse still, is that very often when it comes around to someone else’s birthday or special occasion, I often can’t afford to buy them anything and so I find myself parting with one of my treasures as if that’s OK!  I even feel good about doing so!
 
Having a light bulb moment!
It has just occurred to me that when I do that, I am doing exactly what mother used to do to me.  Take my treasures and give them to someone else as if it was not mine in the first place.  With mother, nothing was sacred to me... I grew up believing that I didn’t deserve to have beautiful things as my own!
 
Well... I’ve decided that from now on, my new gift to myself is no more being denied the beautiful gifts of love that are given to me as if I do not deserve to enjoy them myself... as if I still fear they will be taken away from me to be given to someone else by mother if she sees them...
 
I may not be able to give others beautiful gifts on their special days, but I will always try to give them my genuine love and hope that it will be enough... I know it would be more than enough for me, because it’s what I long for most, above all other gifts that this world can give.
 
I remember this poem and all the years I had a tiny red dress made out of cardboard hanging on my wall in my room in an attempt to remind myself that I was “a somebody”.  I lost it when I moved homes... I think I should make myself another one.

Millie's Mother's Red Dress
 
It hung there in the closet
While she was dying, Mother's red dress,
Like a gash in the row
Of dark, old clothes
She had worn away her life in.
 
They had called me home
And I knew when I saw her
She wasn't going to last.
 
When I saw the dress, I said
"Why, Mother - how beautiful!
I've never seen it on you."
"I've never worn it," she slowly said.
"Sit down, Millie - I'd like to undo
A lesson or two before I go, if I can."
 
I sat by her bed
And she sighed a bigger breath
Then I thought she could hold.
"Now that I'll soon be gone,
I see some things.
 
Oh, I taught you good - but I taught you wrong."
"What do you mean Mother?"
"Well - I always thought
That a good woman never takes her turn,
That she's just for doing for somebody else.
Do here, do there, always keep
Everybody else's wants tended and make sure
Yours are at the bottom of the heap."
"Maybe someday you'll get to them.
But of course you never do.
My life was like that - doing for your dad,
Doing for the boys, for your sisters, for you."
"You did - everything a mother could."
"Oh, Millie, Millie, it was not good -
For you - for him. Don't you see?
I did you the worst of wrongs.
I asked for nothing - for me!"
 
"Your father in the other room,
All stirred up and staring at the walls -
When the doctor told him, he took
It bad - came to my bed and all but shook
The life right out of me. 'You can't die,
Do you hear? What'll become of me?'
' What'll become of me?'
It'll be hard, all right when I go.
He can't even find the frying pan, you know."
"And you children -
I was a free ride for everybody, everywhere.
I was the first one up and the last one down
Seven days out of the week.
I always took the toast that got burned,
And the very smallest piece of pie."
"I look at how some of your brothers
Treat their wives now
And it makes me sick, 'cause it was me
That taught it to them. And they learned,
They learned that a woman doesn't
Even exist except to give.
Why, every single penny that I could save
Went for your clothes, or your books,
Even when it wasn't necessary.
 
Can't even remember once when I took
Myself downtown to buy something beautiful -
For me."
"Except last year when I got that red dress.
I found I had twenty dollars
That wasn't especially spoke for.
I was on my way to pay extra on the washer.
But somehow - I came home with this big box.
Your father really gave it to me then.
'Where you going to wear a thing like that to -
Some opera or something?'
And he was right, I guess.
I've never, except in the store,
Put on that dress."
 
"Oh Millie - I always thought if you take
Nothing for yourself in this world
You'd have it all in the next - somehow
I don't believe that anymore.
I think the Lord wants us to have something -
Here - and now."
"And I'm telling you , Millie, if some miracle
Could get me off this bed, you could look
For a different mother, 'cause I would be one.
Oh, I passed up my turn so long
I would hardly know how to take it.
But I'd learn, Millie.
I would learn!"
 
It hung there in the closet
While she was dying, Mother's red dress,
Like a gash in the row
Of dark, old clothes
She had worn away her life in.
Her last words to me were these:
"Do me the honour, Millie,
Of not following in my footsteps.
Promise me that."
I promised.
 
She caught her breath
Then Mother took her turn
In death.
 
~Carol Lynn Pearson~
 
A few years ago, my lovely daughter in law, Stacey, gave me a red dress she had lovingly made especially for me, because she knew how much I cherished the story behind the little cardboard red dress on my wall... I will never forget how overwhelmed I felt with the depth of love that filled me and how much I cried as a result when I opened that precious gift from her that day.  One of those really beautiful moments in my life for which I will be forever grateful.
 
~ Pana