The prompt for yesterday was, ‘What is the most memorable gift you have received’ I received the gift on my 40th birthday.
I need to put this gift in context so that those who read can understand why this gift was so special. My parents’ marriage broke down when my siblings and I were still in school. The older ones were either at college or secondary school, the younger ones including myself were still in primary school.
Dad decided to walk out on mum and us six children and went to live in a different city which was 220 miles away from the family home. This left my mum as the sole bread winner. Through out this time dad did not want to know he actually found himself another wife and started a new family.
Mum did the best to make sure we were provided for. Mum was fortunate to have a network of her own family who supported her morally and financial to provide for us. Mum made sure we got birthday presents and Christmas presents and never got any presents from dad in our entire lives.
Fast forward we all finished school and each went to live where our jobs took us. On my fortieth birthday my sister decided to throw a surprise party and had all family decend at my house on my birthday which happened to be a Saturday that particular year.
My father had been told about it and decided to come this was the first time ever for my dad in my forty years to celebrate my birthday with me. He obviously was beginning to realise he had not been around. As he did not know me well he had no idea what to get me for my birthday so he put a hundred dollars in an envelope as my present.
Of alll the presents 🎁 I received from my mum and siblings this envelope was the ‘most memorable gift I had ever received’ why because it was from my dad. It was so memorable that I slept clutching the envelope on my chest with tears in my eyes through out the night. My mum asked why my dad’s present had affected me that much.
This was the first time my father had expressed his love for me, it was not the amount but the mere acknowledgement that I was one of his children whom he had walked out on those many years ago.
Any child needs the assurance that its parents values them no matter what may happen between them as a couple each of them has a responsibility for the children.
If you ask me I do not think I remember what I bought with the money. What was important was that for the first time my dad had given me a present and had acknowledged that I was one of his offspring. My father being present for my birthday was the best present I had ever received throughout my forty years if my life.