The Rejected Gift
Newly divorced with a one and seven-year-old, I made the decision to stay in the house, buying my former partner out and determined to somehow find a way to pay the bills. I told myself this was to provide stability to our children. While true, a deeper motive was that I too needed that stability.
Fast forward a year or so and I am barely making ends meet while not going into debt. I choose to not share with my parents, however I'm sure on some level it is evident. I drive a car that is 20 years old and the trips I take with my children are limited, yet an important priority. I take extra work to be able to afford these.
My phone rings and both parents are on the line. This alone is highly unusual and I am immediately on alert. Always focused on making sure that there is equitable sharing among myself and my three siblings, my parents begin by telling me that they have been helping one of my siblings through school and they've helped set up my other two siblings in their businesses. I'm all about that and have never felt slighted. Then they proceed, to my shock, to ask if they could buy me a car. I am overwhelmed, and my pride chipped. I immediately respond that no, I don't need a new car, and all I really want is their love.
And that's that. I don't look back until now. Now I get a glimpse of how the rejection of this heartfelt and generous gift may have felt to my parents. My parents struggled financially in the early years of their marriage. Being the oldest, arriving close to their 1st year anniversary, this was a way of life for me. My parents are farmers, which is one big gamble each year. They both worked day and into many nights. Dinner conversations often focused on if a bill could be paid on time, or if they had to get another loan from the bank. It was often tense.
As a child and into my early adult years I was painfully aware of the effort it took my parents – physically, emotionally, and mentally - to be successful at their farming business. Through their fiscal management, partnership, expansion, and the good fortune of not too many years of storm damaged crops coupled with prices that allowed a profit, they successfully grew their farming enterprise. To this day, my father is actively farming, albeit on a smaller scale.
My childhood was stable; the same house, always ample food and clothing, often meticulously made by my Mom. I was taught independence and hard work by example; from this, I inferred it was not okay to ask for help nor to accept gifts that were ‘too much’, although what that meant, I’m not sure.
Thus, with the unprecedented offer by my parents to purchase something so substantial for me, I shut down and hung tightly to the mistaken message that this help was not okay, despite being offered by the very people who had taught me values that remain. I rejected this gift out-of-hand without pausing to consider the intent and spirit of the offer.
All this came flooding back to me recently, as I was guiding a class. In the throes of the quiet moments, the memory flooded back, and so did memories of so many other times when I have rejected gifts of kindness, attention, a listening ear, and more, all freely offered. To what end? Pride? And overzealous need for independence? To prove I can do this life all by myself? Contrasted with my firm belief that we are all connected and need each other, I could not see clearly what I was not able to in the past. Namely, the rejecting of all types of gifts resided in my mistaken belief that I am not enough, I don't matter, I don't deserve any of this. And I started to think of all the times I have rejected gifts. Gifts of love, gifts of support, even an occasional gift of monetary significance. Especially the gift of someone willing to listen, and me deciding I could not take up ‘too’ much of their time, when my soul needed nothing more than to be heard.
Despite all my years of practice and study some of the resistance remains. So I continue to practice and see and embrace. At the same time I recognize the importance to both the giver and the receiver of accepting gifts given freely. I can't go back and say yes to the gift of a new car that my parents offered during a time when I sorely needed some financial help and was too proud to accept it. Or to all the other times I’ve rejected the listening ear, or an offer of kindness. I can choose to recognize and embrace gifts from now forward when they are offered – the compliment, the surprise, the beauty when another is vulnerable. And humbly I share that this begins with recognizing the incredible gift that I am. Now my intention is to say YES to the gifts in whatever form and manner they appear. For I see so much more clearly how accepting the gift freely given nourishes, supports, and connects.