The Gifts They Want to Give

When I was 22 and gave birth to my first child, I had very definite ideas about how I wanted to dress her, how her bedroom should look, and opinions about every minute detail of her life.  She was my baby and there was a part of me which feared that sharing the decisions about what was purchased for her in some way diminished my role as her mother.

15 years and 7 babies later, if I could go back in time and talk to my much younger self, I’d want to say “Let people give your children the gifts they want to give them. Let them dream fanciful thoughts for your babies.  Share the joy of your babies with the people who love them.”

#7 on Aunt K’s quilt

When we discovered that #7 was a girl, I designed in my head the perfect bedding.  I envisioned pink and funky, modern and bright.  My husband’s sweet Aunt K is a seamstress and offered to make anything my heart desired.  I found the perfect fabric and sent it to her.  A month later the bedding arrived in the mail.  I was delighted with the beautiful things she had made.  She was not.  A few weeks later, she called and said she had made a different quilt for the baby.  It was the quilt she had wanted to make all along.  It took my breath away.  It was even more lovely than I could have wished.  It was a gift borne of her imagination, love and talent.  It was quite simply a gift of herself.

My mother-in-law offered to buy our sweet girl’s Baptism gown.  She told me to select it and she would write the check.  How did I want to dress our girl on this most special day?  I thought about it for a few days, and it was honestly too much for me to deal with in the midst of moving, homeschooling, pregnancy and life.  Did she want to choose it?  She is the mother of two sons who always wanted a girl.  I told her to pick what she had dreamed of dressing her own daughter in some day.  It was completely up to her.  I asked for no details and gave no guidelines except length and color (white, of course!).   Last Friday, I was shown the culmination of the planning and love of both of my husband’s parents for our tiny daughter.  Crafted of white silk dupioni and embroidered with pearls, it was a dream of a dress.  My in laws dream.  It had the puff sleeves my father in law blushingly told me he would have dressed his own daughter in.  The slip was made of the softest flannel because her skin is delicate and February is cold.  They didn’t want #7 to catch a chill in her fancy dress.  The hem of her slip bears a Scripture verse her grandparents chose especially for her.  Instead of a traditional blanket to wrap her in, they opted for a fantasy of a white cape, embroidered with her name and Baptism date and lined with the softest velvet imaginable.  How tiny my thoughts were in comparison to their vision.  They could have bought the gown I picked, but instead they wrapped her in a gift of themselves and beamed with pride as their girl became God’s own.

The deacon from our old parish asked our opinions about the Baptism itself.  I left it to him, and the Litany of Saints was filled with those whose names we bear as well as those he knows have special importance to our family.  He spoke movingly of our family and found all the words we needed to hear when he wrote down what he wanted to say.

Our beloved Oma offered to make a dinner for us.  We had planned to simply go to a restaurant because we no longer live in Oklahoma City.  She was adamant that no baby of hers was going to be Baptized without a party, so she gave our daughter the gift of a celebratory dinner.  I had expected that we would arrive at her home for cake and punch, but found instead a spread of turkey and sides, a fantastic cake and a champagne toast to welcome #7 to our family.   It was a reflection of Oma’s joy in the girl she loves.

I’ve found as #7’s mom that I can let go.  I can step back and trust the people we love to make decisions for our children because they adore them, too.  When I let our loved ones give the gifts they want to give instead of just the things we request, they far surpass my expectations. When I’m in charge I ask for stuff and when they are they give the whole of themselves.  How can anything I want ever be better than that?