A Treasured Life and a Place to Keep It

Even after the snow has ceased, replaced by birds and daffodils, lawn mowers whirring, for me it is never really spring till the graduation announcements arrive. This is the time of year when the children of my friends, neighbors and acquaintances, for whom I have babysat, bought sidewalk chalk, shown how to play jacks, are stepping up to the edge of the nest and daring to fly off on their own.

Some of these kids I know really well, some hardly at all, but for each of them, whether I know them or not, their high school or college graduation is a very big deal. I used to be completely stumped in the appropriate and correct graduation gift department. Wedding gifts are easy -- Money. Baby gifts are fun and easy --- something cute and money. But graduation... Just plain money? An anonymous compulsory nondescript white envelope of cash, check or gift card? No fun for the donor, too disconnected for the recipient.

I don't have a problem with gifts of cash simply because they are cash. In disagreement with some, I think cash can be a good gift, a great gift. It can be combined with other gifts and something truly useful and even wonderfully much needed can be had. And I always trust that the recipient knows just what to do with a gift of cash. But I also like a gift to mean something. When I am invited to a bridal shower or a housewarming, I always give a cleaning bucket packed with all the required supplies of cleansers and polishes, cleaning rags and scrub brushes. For one thing this is the stuff that newlyweds and homeowners have to have, also it's no fun at all to buy. Never mind the symbolism about the journey of life being messy and the required regularity to clean it up.

But for a graduate the gift giving isn't so obvious. I want to give... knowledge and support, encouragement and applause, all the valuable little treasures.... Well there it is, so obvious... what I want to give to a graduate is the treasure of life -- the treasure of him or herself, the treasure of the future, the treasure of all things costly and inane and a place to keep them.

And so, for the graduates in my life this is the time of year when I make, or rather adorn, little wooden treasure boxes, little containers of nothing that with paint and ribbon and bits of fabrics and floss I turn into something. And then I stick a check inside.
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