What Does it Want for Its Birthday, My Precious?

Aah... the ancient cry of the loving boyfriend who wants to make sure that the woman of his affections will LIKE the gift he gives her...

I was over at the home of a married couple last evening, good, good friends. We talked up this subject a bit.

Because of course, what we all REALLY want is world peace, and an end to hunger and strife...

"When I was younger," said M, (who I doubt has actually passed 30 yet, but is wise for her age) "I used to love jewellery. Chose my boyfriends on the basis of what they could afford to buy me... But not now. It was all stolen anyway, and I hardly wear any jewellery any more. I wear what L gives me, and I like that, but now I like things that make our life together easier, happier..."

"How noble," I thought guiltily, twisting in my seat. Because I've got a list that would wrap around the block. Maybe even several times over.

Am I truly a "Material Girl?"

I never thought of myself as one. To quote Bruce Cockburn, "All the diamonds in the world that mean anything to me, are conjured up by wind and sunlight sparkling on the sea."

Yes, I believe this is still representative of me on some level of my soul. Even though I don't believe in an afterlife, so it's not one of those "lay up your treasure in Heaven" sentiments. My treasures are right here, in this life.

(That being said, if one is ever going to see the wind and sunlight sparkling on the sea, someone has to buy airline tickets!)

But I don't want, or like, treasures for their own benefit. Some of my treasures are the cheapest things you could imagine.

My Grandmother's aluminum teapot, for example. The handle is loose, and you can see where Grandpa fixed it once or twice before. But that teapot should be in a museum!

See, Grandma and Grandpa were married for just over 60 years. Every single day, three times a day, for breakfast, lunch, and supper, Grandma would make tea.

But what tea! The little pot barely holds 4 cups of liquid. She'd put 3 Tetley Flavor-Flow-Through teabags into it. (If you know anything about tea, you know that's nearly the equivalent of enough to make 8 strong cups of tea.)

She wouldn't unplug the kettle before pouring the water into the pot - Grandma was a fanatic about having her tea HOT. (If her tea wasn't still boiling as it entered her cup, by the way, it wasn't HOT enough...) So, the kettle would rage while she poured out the water and slammed the lid onto the pot and turned the burner onto HIGH. Then and then only, she'd unplug the kettle, mercifully stopping it from blasting into outer space.

She'd bring the tea, in the pot on the stove, to a full rolling boil. Sometimes for a few minutes if she really wanted a good, strong cuppa tea!

Then she'd turn the heat to low, and proceed to serve and eat the meal.

After the meal, she'd begin clearing the dishes and once again turn the burner under the pot to HIGH and yes, bring it to a boil, a full, rolling boil, a THIRD time, in the pot!

She'd pour her tea and Grandpa's, and this is where it would get really interesting...

Every day, for 60+ years, Grandpa would put in his mounds of sugar and fill his cup to the brim with milk. And every day, three times a day, for 60+ years, he'd lift it to his lips, blow on it several times...

And burn himself. Whereupon he'd slam the cup back down into the saucer and start complaining. He'd make a very particular sound with his teeth and lips, a cross between "whew" and "tweet", and then he'd say "I don't know why you insist on making it so darned hot!"

Grandma, downing her tea in gulps before it could cool, would make a face at me that said, "isn't he silly?".

One day, while visiting them for lunch, I lost it.

"I don't know which of you is the more stubborn," I practically shouted at them, "or the more stupid!"

They both stared open-mouthed at me. Nobody in the world had ever dared to speak to them that way.

"You!" I pointed at Grandma, having inherited her "wagging finger" technique... "You KNOW he wants his tea stone-cold! Would it kill you to pour his tea out before you sit down to eat, so he doesn't burn himself every meal?"

"And you!" I pointed at Grandpa. "Three meals a day, sixty years, when are you going to stop trying to drink your tea right away? Surely after all this time you're not surprised by how hot it is!"

I never saw either of them look so abashed. Conversation was a little subdued after that particular outburst.

But nothing changed. The tea stayed hot. And Grandpa kept burning his lips. To their dying days.

That teapot now cooly graces my corner cupboard. What exactly does it represent? Sixty years of undying devotion? Comeraderie? Friendship? Raising a family? Tenacity? Iron will? British backbone? Abject refusal to cooperate?

God only knows, I sure don't. But I would be very, very sad to lose it, even though it's only a bit of metal - and practically scrap metal in its current condition! I doubt very much the original cost was even five dollars.

Yet I know that one day my Daughter will hold it to her chest, after I am gone, and have a good cry over it, remember Grandma and Grandpa, and me, and every struggle we've been through. That little aluminum teapot represents a truth about our family, all the struggles my grandparents went through. Daughter herself has had tea served from that very pot to her by her great-grandmother. She was about ten years old when G&G passed away, and up to that time had been babysat at their home, our home, every day when I worked. What wonderful gift, to have living experience of your great-grandparents!

That teapot couldn't be more valuable if it was made of a solid diamond.

I am partial to jewellery... I have my mother's jewellery. I wear her wedding band and her birthstone ring almost every day of my life. They're beautiful pieces, but they're important to me because she wore them. (I think this is what's called a "chick thing.") As if some of the life-force or personality of the wearer could be contained in these objects because they had been on her hands. Her loving hands, with her beautifully-manicured nails. My mother had beautiful hands. I miss them, their gentle touch, their warmth, their comfort. So I wear her rings. I touch them often while wearing them, too, to feel the security of having them on my fingers. I look at them and admire their beauty, as the woman who wore them was the most beautiful of any I can recall... with the possible exception of Daughter... I look at them, and I miss my mother. Their design is her taste made tangible - simple, elegant, ...graceful.

I inherited all these items, but once upon a time they were gifts. Grandpa bought the teapot for Grandma because she wanted a teapot that could go on the stove - little knowing what he was letting himself in for! He also bought her the corner cabinet it is now displayed in.

My Stepdad bought my Mom her wedding band. Her birthstone ring was also a gift, albeit from a different admirer! (Yah! Go, Mom, go!)

Memories of the people we love, and the good times we had with them, are priceless. Last year's camping trip, we laughed so many times my sides ached almost as much as my joints did from the damp. I have pictures to help me remember the fun, but there is almost no way to convey how much I love those people we went camping with or how loved they made me, and continue to make me feel.

There's a game I enjoy playing, called Cubic. It's a three-dimensional Tic-Tac-Toe game. I received it as a gift from my father, I think I might have been eight or ten... It's the one game I could beat my Dad at, and he enjoyed the challenge of not automatically being able to win. Daughter and I played that game ad nauseum during the ten years I was a single mom. I got a pal to make her a permanent, high-class version of the game, with real wood and pretty glass chips... I'm sure it didn't cost ten bucks when Daddy bought it for me, but the hours spent in competition with him, and with Daughter, have relegated it to the realm of the priceless. Maybe I should ask for a new one for myself, since mine is missing a third of it's structure.

In returning to the question, "what does it want for its birthday?" I must ask, does actually knowing about six or seven-hundred things I'd like, right off the bat, make me a materialistic scumbag?

I want something that reminds me of Boyfriend. Something that someone, one day will comment on and say "That's lovely" or "That's interesting," and I can say, "Yes, Boyfriend gave me that for my 52nd birthday."

I do not need to be surprised - I'm far too conscious of the cost of things and can recall too easily past gifts from others that missed the mark, sometimes even the solar system... No, surprises, I think, are for the young. Specifically those under ten years old. After ten years old, most of us are quite able to guess what's in our little packages! May as well make sure we like it, since the money is being spent anyway...

So I guess I'd better get out pen and paper...