On Gratitude

     Yesterday the UPS man rang the doorbell and left a package from a well known, open 24 hour every day, purveyor of all things needed to live in Maine.  I hadn't ordered anything, so of course I was curious.. It was a knitted toque (some of you may know it as a ski-hat) with a multi-colored pom-pom on top.  The hat itself is multi-colored, with the name of the merchandizer worked into the "cuff" and the silhouette of three pine trees in the main body of the hat.  There was only one thing missing in the package; the name of the sender.

      Since I have a good friend who lives in Maine (actually several of them) and she knows that I love the novels of Lousie Penny, set in a mythical village named Three Pines, I contacted her first:  "It seems to me that the combination of B***s and 3 Pines is suggestive.  Is it you I should thank for my snuggly toque?"

     Her response:  "Someone sent you a hat?  It was not I."  My friends know I love good grammar.

     I went to the next likely suspect, the dear friend who introduced me to Penny's work, who has been a cherished support during several hellish years.  She was the first to "Like" the picture of the hat I had put on social media.  "Is it you I may thank for my toque?"

     "I wish!!!!!

     "What a lovely gift!"

    I responded, "Hmmmm...now I am truly stumped."

    "Perhaps it is meant to stay a secret!"

    "It is an interesting feeling to be indebted to someone unknown."

     I used "interesting" because I wasn't sure exactly how I felt.  Perhaps "unsettling" is a better word, because while I am a believer in and preacher of grace, I am also well-schooled in doing what is "right", and maintaining social balance.  A gift requires one to say "Thank you."  The civility of society hangs on remembering "the niceties."  

    EXCURSUS:  Once when we had been married about 10 years my husband received an unsigned valentine in the mail.  We did not recognize the handwriting of the address, the postmark was unhelpful, and we asked everyone we thought might have sent it, only to have them deny initiating the card.  It didn't bother me in the sense that I was jealous.  I've always been quite secure in his love and faithfulness.  It was the mystery that gnawed at me.  Twenty-five years later I still think of it ocassionally:  Who?  Why?  I (on the otherhand) have never received a secret valentine, nor even one that surprised me, yet here I am with a hat.  "Perhaps it is meant to stay a secret."  In my mind, I hear my parents fake crooning "Ooonce I had a secret LOOOOOOOVE..."

     It is unsettling.  Yet it occurs to me that we are all the recipients of others' generosity, the offerings of givers unknown to us.  My granddaughter has cancer.  She has received numerous transfusions of blood and platelets.  Some of them (a small fraction) came from friends and family.  Most of them came from people we will never know, who literally gave of themselves for strangers.  There is a man in Rochester, NY who has given 469 units of blood over the years and who donates platelets twice a month.  He is a hero.

     Those of us who received a public education did so, in part, through the taxes of those who had no children, or whose children were grown and gone long before we entered Kindergarten.  How often do we say thank you?

     It seems to me as if we feel we need to ignore the gifted-ness of our lives in order to maintain our own equilibrium as well as that of society.  For some of us just receiving a gift is hard enough.  To receive without some way of regaining the "proper" maintenance of relationships leaves us uneasy; a least it does me.

     I tried one more possibile gifter:  "Is it you to whom I owe thanks for my wonderful hat?"

     "Not I.  But I wish I had"

     It occurs to me - how fortunate am I, to have a number of friends I know would do something so sweet and generous?  And there are those who have shown their love and caring in other ways, by creating a web of love and support that not only makes my world better, but which creates Good in the world.

     While writing this I thought of someone else who purchases from the people who drive around in a big hunting boot.  "Did YOU send my hat?"

     "I don't know what that means."  

     So I will respect your privacy and accept my unknowing and dis-equilibrium if that's what you wish.  But know this:  I am deeply grateful for your love and generosity - and for the hat.