Gifts
Yesterday, I was in the shower scrubbing my face and somehow a fingernail caught my little gold hoop earring and I felt my earring pop right off. Since I was washing my face, I couldn't just open my eyes. I quickly rinsed off the soap and as soon as I could see, I stepped on top of the drain and shut off the water. Then began the scramble on my knees looking for a little gold hoop earring in a shower that has mosaic-looking, fifty-shades-of-beige tile.
I didn't find it.
I immediately messaged my Main Squeeze and told him I had lost my gold earring *sad face, crying face, teary face emoji*. He replied that he was sorry about my earring, then I went to work.
The fact that it's gold isn't what caused my distress. These earrings are the last pieces of jewelry I have left that were a gift from my Bobeh (my paternal grandmother) from when I was a little girl. My Bobeh had given me a gold necklace that was my name in script - kind of like Carrie Bradshaw's from Sex and the City. According to family lore, I kept breaking the necklace and my daddy kept taking it to a jewelry repair shop to be put back together. But eventually, it broke and I didn't realize it and the necklace was lost forever. I also had a gold signet ring with my name engraved on it. I had given it to my very first boyfriend (on loan, whether he knew that or not) and he kept it on a gold chain. One day, our class took a trip and we went swimming and the necklace came off and floated away, engraved signet ring and all, and we didn't realize it until it was too late. We searched in the water, but it was gone.
I don't even know what other gold jewelry my Bobeh may have given me when I was little that I have since lost. But I had these earrings most of my life. And I wore them for decades in my second piercings.
I'm not sentimental by nature, but losing my earring did cause me sadness. I have such a tenuous tie to my past, to family history. I grew up in a different country from my extended family and my Bobeh is not a woman I knew much at all. However, every once in a while, I would exhibit a characteristic or do some action that would make my mami or daddy or both exclaim, "That is just like Bobeh!" I love tea and I like cinnamon, but I do not like cinnamon tea. "That is just like Bobeh!" I love being out - going out to eat, going to the movies, going to parties - and just staying out late. "That is just like Bobeh!" I love to dance and somehow wind up with partners who don't like to dance. "That is just like Bobeh!" I taught myself to sew when I was a teenager. "That is just like Bobeh!"
My connection to my Bobeh is real, even though she is someone I hardly knew. After we left Mexico City when I was 3 years old, I probably saw her once or twice more in my life before she passed away. And yet - I know things about her, because they are things we have in common. It is through these idiosyncrasies that I feel a connection to this stranger that I happen to be related to by blood.
So I allowed myself to feel sad that I lost my earring. And... I felt a little guilty. As if I had done a lousy job of guarding this piece of my history. The earrings were a gift that meant something to me because I had imbued them with meaning. And I lost one in the most ridiculous way.
I love presents. I love getting them and I love giving them. However, when I was little and I would get presents at my birthday party from friends, I often felt disappointed by the presents. A latch hook rug set? (Actually, one year I got THREE latch hook rug sets! Granted, this was the late 1970s, but still!) I learned early on that I needed to be appreciative of the gift whether I liked it or not. At least, I had to look and act appreciative. From these experiences, I learned that I could appreciate the gesture of gift giving regardless of how I felt about the actual gift. This has stayed with me. I am always grateful when someone gives me a gift. Genuinely grateful. Someone cares about me enough to actually get me something! What could be a more obvious sign of affection?
I read an article years ago that said something about how a gift is not a person. This meant that a gift is a thing and does not need to carry the same emotional weight as the person giving it. That's a huge burden for an object. When I read that, I felt like a light had gone off. Yes! That's exactly it! I can love a person and still think they got me a lousy gift. The gift doesn't lessen my love and gratitude for whoever gave it to me. I adopted this philosophy as a gift giver as well. When I give a gift, I do so out of affection. I don't like to buy gifts out of obligation, although I will when the situation requires it. I am a year-round shopper and if I see something that I think Dear Friend XYZ will like, I'll pick it up and stick it in the back of my closet until Dear Friend XYZ's birthday. Or Christmas. Or Chanukah. Or baby shower. Or! I won't stick it in the closet at all and I'll give them a Just-Because gift.
Once I give a gift to someone, I relinquish all ties to that gift. That gift now belongs to whoever I gave it to and whatever they do with it is no reflection of their feelings for me. If they love it, that's great! If they don't and they hide it (and maybe only take it out when I visit), that's fine too. If they re-gift it, I'm ok with that. I am not a packrat. I regularly get rid of things and I try not to contribute to people's junk piles. If they donate it or throw it away, it's fine. Because it's their gift and they are free to do with it whatever they like.
I didn't always feel this way. One year when I was in junior high, the class ordered corsages for Mother's Day. These corsages had artificial flowers and heart-shaped red pipe cleaners. This was in Mexico, where mothers all show off their corsages on Mother's Day. When the corsages came in, I was so excited because I was going to give my mami a real gift! I ran home and gave her the corsage and she looked so happy! She hugged me and said thank you, thank you, and... I never saw the corsage again. I wondered where it had gone. Why didn't she wear it? Did she throw it away? What happened to it? I never asked because I wasn't ready to hear the answer.
Years later, I was looking for something that my mami told me was in her top dresser drawer. As I pulled out pajama set after pajama set, I got to something plastic. I pulled it out and it was the fake-flower-and-pipe-cleaner-heart corsage I had given her in junior high. Years ago! She had kept it all these years!
This time, I confronted her. "Mami, why did you hide your corsage?" She looked taken aback. "Hide it? I was keeping it safe."
She kept it safe at the bottom of her pajamas in the top dresser drawer. For years. I thought about that. I expected her to wear her corsage on Mother's Day, like all the other Mexican mamis. The flowers would probably have gotten stained and for sure that pipe cleaner heart would've gotten deformed. She knew this. So she buried it under all of her pajamas and kept it safe.
My mami has a very different philosophy about gifts than I do. And that's ok. We still love each other.
Yesterday after I got home from work, I went straight to the bathroom and inspected every inch of my shower. Nothing. Then I widened my search and started looking around the rest of bathroom. And there, behind the toilet, nestled in a warren of dust bunnies...
I found my gold hoop earring.
