My mom’s birthday is in February, the no man’s land of winter in the Midwest. It’s deceptive for a number of reasons, the first being that after we have collectively managed the pomp of the holiday season, I tend to view the open stretch of the new year almost as the winter itself: an unbroken field of nothing ahead save a blank canvas of days that all look the same. How her birthday, which has remained fixed on the calendar since before I was born, still manages to creep up and surprise me, is a bit of a mystery. Yet every year it does, and then the birthday scramble ensues.
The second reason it is deceptive is due to the nature of the woman herself: she is uncommonly kind and pleasant, which ought to make gift-giving easy, yet she is the most difficult person to find the right present for. We all know the type, even if their personalities might differ: they have everything they could ever need, they buy for themselves what they don’t already possess, they don’t travel and they don’t cultivate any hobbies. What to do on birthdays and holidays?
In my mother’s case, she had always been somewhat mild-mannered and hard to pin down in terms of strong preferences, but as she has aged, it has become worse. Her mobility has decreased, and her interests seem to be watching TV or playing games on her phone. Her bed is piled high with quilts, her cupboard is already full of scented candles and she has slippers in every color of the rainbow. She has mugs and t-shirts galore proclaiming her to be the world’s best grandma, and a basket overflowing with yarns of every fiber from when she took up knitting a few years ago. There’s simply nothing left to buy her that she seems to need or want, yet still February rolls around every year. Despite the family’s attempts to cut down on gift giving, it’s a hard custom to break, especially when she faithfully remembers birthdays, graduations, weddings and Christmas for everyone else.
The grandkids have turned to gift cards as the answer. It seems practical enough: she goes out to brunch once a week with her girlfriends, and you can never have enough free breakfasts. It has always seemed a little impersonal to me, though, and I can’t quite bring myself to do it. My sister send flowers, spending an obscene amount on huge bouquets. On birthdays and Mother’s Day, they arrive in riots of color. My mom posts pictures of roses, peonies and sunflowers that line the tables of her small house. It becomes early spring in February for her, which seems a cheerful and thoughtful gift.
Recently, though, my mom let slip that the flowers weren’t as easy for her as they might seem. “I can’t check the mail as often as I used to since I fell,” she confessed. “When I know I have to because the flowers will be outside in the snow, it’s hard.” I hadn’t thought of how something as simple as checking the mail might be difficult for an older person. She continued, “Trying to bend over to pick them up is hard, too, and carry them in with my cane. By the time I put them all in water, I’m exhausted.” She wasn’t complaining, just explaining. “They really are pretty, but I can’t change the water, and they die. I feel bad that your sister spent so much and I can’t make them last.”
“Well, it’s hard to find something you like, Mom,” I said. “What do you want for your birthday? You never say.”
She gazed out the window. “Just time with you. Time with friends, to talk, I guess. I know that sounds silly to you, but that’s all I really need at this age. Just to be with people I love.”
It didn’t sound silly at all, and it shouldn’t be as hard as it was in reality to make that happen. We love our parents, but time is a premium for us and they have many hours each day to reflect and long for us. Easy Tidings is a way to give a gift of friendship and connection with parents or loved ones when you can’t be there. It is longer lasting than flowers, more meaningful than gift cards and more thoughtful than another candle. It won’t replace you, but it will help ease some of the loneliness your parent may be feeling. In my own case, I realized that I needed to spend a little more time listening and stop trying to find the perfect thing to buy a few days before a birthday just to fulfill a requirement. Maybe Easy Tidings can be that gift for you.
