She Gave the Most Thoughtful Gifts

She gave me that felt hat I mentioned in my last post ... about 20 or so years ago. The hat looks like an Indiana Jones hat, or perhaps a Humphrey Bogart hat. I remember saying to her, while we were watching one or the other of those movies, that I really had to get a "hat like that." I was laughing, and she was laughing too. But I meant it.

And she went out of her way to get me ... a "hat like that."

She did this kind of thing so many times.

I told her how much I valued a certain book from childhood that was long lost. The Story about Ping, by Marjorie Flack, pictures by the great Kurt Wiese. I have that book before me now. Because she got a replica copy somehow, from somewhere. She must have ordered it from a used book dealer.

After my father died, his widow (he had remarried) asked me if there was anything of his that I wanted. I said just one thing, and one thing only, really: A large coffee-table book replete with Bill Mauldin's WWII cartoons. My father and I had few happy memories. But one happy memory we had: our shared delight in Bill Mauldin. Dad had to explain him to me, of course. But I learned and laughed. Well, after the funeral, his widow said that they had been unable to find this book. I was keenly disappointed. So Mom ... Mom ordered a replica copy. It was exactly the same as the lost Bill Mauldin book.

Mom had the grace to even get something for me when she knew I would like it, even when she herself didn't understand it and perhaps didn't entirely sympathize with it. For example, after moving away from my Methodist roots, in an evolution that would take me to Roman Catholicism, I valued on this path C.S. Lewis very much. Mom knew this; knew I loved Lewis; and ordered me a really nice hard-back edition of Lewis' Mere Christianity ... one of my favorite Lewis books.

She did this kind of thing all her life. For me, and for others. In fact, I simply don't know now, and have never known, anyone more generous, kind, and thoughtful in her gifts.

Oh Momma how I miss you. How I miss you.

I love you.

Please Lord take good, good care of my dear Momma.

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Martin de Porres