Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world.

Additional Story for Christmas Contest – Sharon Bryant

January 7, 2008

This one isn’t entered in the contest because Sharon already has her 4 entries in but it is worth reading anyhow.

The Gift That Brought Me To My Knees

Sharon Bryant

Through the years, we've all been given gifts that we've loved.  Gifts that have even touched our lives in simple ways or even big ways.

This year I received such a gift.

Hubby and I decided instead of buying one another a gift, we would get new carpeting.  The carpet has been ordered and our date for installation is set for the first week of January.  I've been very happy knowing that after years, I will have a soft comfy carpet since the old one is getting thread bare and tattered.  (Due to 3 happy dogs that like to do the Daytona 500 in our home!)

Christmas Eve my son and his wife came over and we exchanged one gift, leaving the rest to be opened Christmas morning.  Photos were taken, and the evening went well.

I don't know why hubby didn't stick to his guns about exchanging a gift between us.  But then.....neither did I.  I handed him a gift Christmas Eve and said, "Here, Santa brought you something."

He looked at me and said, "We weren't supposed to give one another a gift, remember?"  I laughed and said, "Santa brought it."

He opened the box that held a watch he's had his eyes on earlier in the year.

I didn't notice the big box with all the other gifts under the small tree.  Not until hubby stood up and reached out and slid the box towards me and said, "Then you have to open yours too."  I laughed thinking, "Yeah right, we weren't supposed to exchange gifts."

The box was wrapped in beautiful paper.  A gorgeous bow adorned the box.  I had no idea what he would have got me when my daughter-in-law said, "You'd never dream what is in that box in a million years."

That stumped me.  They all said, "Open it."

As I tore the paper off, I kept thinking......"I'm in cake decorating courses, I wonder if it's a case of the cardboard circles I need to put my cakes on."  That's what I thought it was and I didn't want to tell hubby I'd already ordered a case of them.

As I removed the tape on the box and the box opened a little, I saw fabric.  Now this really had me stumped.  I couldn't imagine what he'd have found that I really would like made of fabric.  Now if it was yarn, since I'm a knitter, I would have guessed some things, but the fabric I saw threw me off.

Hubby was standing and said, "Pull it out of the box."  I slowly started pulling on a very large amount of fabric.   I thought I saw the ear of a Corgi puppy.  I was sure it was a comforter with a lot of different Corgi's on it.  That I would have loved.

What was in the box when he helped me it up brought me to my knees.  He had snuck photos out of the house and had a friend enlarge them and placed them around the large comforter.  In the center of the comforter is an angel with a beautiful scripture on it.

The first photo I saw was of my best friend whom I lost in April of this year.  Just to see her smiling face, remembering the photo since she was holding my little boy that died, brought tears to my eyes.  As I opened the comforter more, the next photo was of myself and my little boy taken on our birthdays the year he turned three-years-old and I 29.  The next one was one of dad and me taken the last year I'd made it home to Michigan for Christmas seven years ago.  On and on, the people I love were pictured all over the outer edge of the comforter.

I couldn't speak.  Tears sprang to my eyes.  Everyone was getting choked up watching me and I was trying so hard to keep it together.

I was having a tough time this year anyways and didn't dig out the old four foot tree until earlier that day.

It took all I had just to get the small tree up.

This gift is one I will remember the rest of my life.  It is one that touched me in a way no other gift can.

To have someone else remember my love for those who I have lost means the world to me.

I am blessed to have such a wonderful husband and family.

Sharon Bryant

1946@bellsouth.net