Learning to Say Thank You

When I was little, I was fascinated by the etiquette of gift exchange.

Though sunny and carefree on the exterior, such occasions were a tangled webs of unspoken social mores. We tend to figure this out pretty early in our lives, right? It takes just one instance of careless unwrapping and vocal disappointment to be made painfully aware of the verbal and non-verbal shape of proper gratitude. Case and point: how was I to react when, at the age of nearly 7, I was given a dog's chew toy by a senile great aunt?

"I don't care if she'd given you a box full of manure," my mother hissed through her teeth on the car ride home, "you smile and say thank you and mean it."



She was saying, of course, that it's the thought that counts. That the most precious element of the gift-giving ritual is being remembered at all, and that the thanksgivings that follow spring from that remembrance, not the gift itself. It's a lesson made a bit opaque through the lens of childhood narcissism, but eventually maturity blows that disillusion wide open. We see that to be remembered is to be loved, because at some point we experience the pain of being forgotten. It's suddenly much harder to be a jerk about hideous knee socks.

Most of us, if we're lucky, reach a point when we realize that the best gifts are people themselves. As far as I'm concerned, you can take baubles and trinkets and space-filling junk; give me one precious, quiet hour with a friend and a glass of wine. It's Christmas in January, February, March and April, especially when it's been as many months or more. And often, it has been.

Today I had breakfast with two friends who truly understand me. One, whom I'll call G, doesn't live here anymore, but made my heart soar by joining me today for church, where yet a third friend I love was absent by happenstance but is likely nearing absence for the long haul. I reveled in G's closeness even as I watched the tableau unfold before me, my other friend's empty seat a reminder of how things are about to be. And I felt bereft. But then buoyed, as my G's voice joined mine in the prayers, in the hymns, in the Nicene Creed. But then again, more sadness staring this other friend's empty place. A person-sized hole was squeezing out the friend right next to me.

And I felt terrible about this. It felt like a sin. Why could I not be joyful in the gift of G's presence with me in the pew? Why could I not dwell on the amazing discussions and sarcasm and love the other friend has brought to my life rather than concentrating on that person-sized hole in my heart? For that matter, given my nostalgic proclivities, why was I not obsessed about the fact that G was about to leave again?

I know why. It's because I'd already grieved over G having moved away. I'd already made my slow, painful, slogging way through those feelings. I sobbed every time I read the copy of Simms Taback's I Miss You Every Day that she ostensibly gave to my children, though I keep it in my bookcase. I learned to get used to the abundance of weekend nights without someone who could just as easily discuss TV and hair as theology and religion. I quit staring mournfully at her street when I drove past it.

The thing is, though, there isn't a week that goes by when at some point I'm not pining for the days she lived just a couple of miles away. I go up to my daughter's room to play with her or wake her up or fuss at her for dumping the entire contents of her chest of drawers on the floor and I have a flash of G and I painting it together, just after Mr. Milkweed and I bought this house and I was very pregnant with my son. The wall color is called "Sassy Violet," but I secretly think of it as "Sassy G." I miss the real-life Sassy G, you see. And that's not going to stop.

I've mostly learned to appreciate it when she's with me. I've mostly learned to accept that these most precious and shining gifts in our lives-- these friends we meet, who leave-- are as much love letters from God as they are love embodied in human form. I look back over the arc of my life and understand that the leaving never stops happening. Eventually it won't be because friends have moved (or because I have moved), it will be because friends have died, and I'll enter a whole new realm of understanding.

A whole new realm of grief.

And, I pray, a whole new realm of thankfulness.

Because, ultimately, I am thankful. I can't imagine my life without these thoughtful, strong, resilient, intelligent women and men who have come along and shared themselves and enriched my existence on the planet. Taught me things about me. Taught me things about Jesus. Taught me things about love and gratitude.

I have some time left with this other friend. When I think about this person lately, I walk the tightrope between smiling and dissolving into tears. More often than not, I cry, especially if I've had some wine, especially if I'm sitting on my side porch and the kids are in bed and the lightning bugs are dancing in the yard. The beauty of the moment highlights the beauty in this other person, and I become a sniveling mess that my husband must rescue and ply with popcorn and Netflix. God love him; he's become so good at that. I rely on him a little too much to bring me back to the present.

I really don't know how I'm going to get through the next inevitable goodbye. I know that I will,though, and that the pain will be intense, but that I will heal and come to be grateful. My family and job will be worthy distractions, and time will pass, and with luck I'll meet new friends.

But oh, how I wish all of my friends from every stage of my life-- all of these gifts-- could be with me forever. I would line them all up and walk from one to another, grasping hands and kissing cheeks. I would recall some private joke or funny story or heartbreaking instance of real connection, and then I would move down the line and do it again. And realize, at the close, that love from all of these people has made me the luckiest girl on earth, even after each of them moved on.

The Carthusian monks have a motto: Stat Crux dum Volvitur Orbis. It means "The Cross is steady while the world turns." In moments like this one, when I type with one hand crumpled around a soggy pile of Kleenex, I am more grateful than ever to know a God who embodies continuity in the midst of upheaval.

It's been a long time since I was nearly 7. I have had many chances to learn and re-learn the essential beauty behind the gift giver (and Gift Giver). It's a lesson which, with God's help, I'll never forget.

For every friend that I've had the pleasure to know and love, I smile, and say thank you, and mean it.