No One Asked Me about Sharing

 

Our city, Saint John, New Brunswick is having a romance with Play it Forward.   This is an action on the concept that you do a good deed for someone, not know to you, and they in turn will play it forward and do a good deed for something else.  The local paper has made much of a Tim’s coffee paid for by a member of City Council.  I am sure there are more weighty gifts but at this time I am not really to participate.   For you see I have my own personal gifting program, I Share.

Sharing was the first social trait instilled in me by my parents.  Part of the Vail family lore tells of Talmage (my Father) and little Valerie trotting home in the horse and buggy.  Yes, I am that old!  We had been to the local grocer and as Dad was purchasing flour and sugar Mr. Dykeman had given me a small bag of penny candy.   Up to that point there had been little candy in my diet.  “Did you save some candy for Mummy” my Dad inquired?  I checked the bag, it was empty.  I took the last candy out of my mouth, wiped it off and put it back in the bag. 

This story has been told now for sixty years, with reinforcement like that why would I not share?   I love to give, choosing just the right gift and imagining the recipient pleasure on the opening fills me with joy.  Yet sharing has another special pleasure.  When I talk about sharing I do not mean my French fries with my husband or my hair spray with my Granddaughter.

My most recent share was to a family member who had been my house guest.  They found their own apartment but had absolutely no furniture and little funds.  Of course I gave them the bed in which they had been sleeping, and the bedding as well.  It was my spare bed but I shall find another in time for my next “guest”.  This is not the first time that a guest has decamped with a bed.  I think of it as the admonishment made in the Bible, to paraphrase “should you have two coats and your brother has none, give your brother a coat”!

I share family heirlooms, my personal clothing, books, furniture, groceries, meals, and cash ….in fact just about anything I possess can be given away if another’s need is greater.  I do not always share out of need, when I gave a table and chairs to my nephew it was because my dining room was bursting at the seams.   My cousin did not need our grandmother’s recipe book, however I had used and cherished it for thirty years and wanted to share.  Ditto for the jug with a family history I passed on to my brother or the silver plate toast rack to his wife. 

For a bit I was worried about this sharing.  I have been quite ill and wondered if the passion for divesting my possessions was an unconscious way of preparing for a personal demise.  But no, my recollection is that I have been like this all my life.   And I try not to worry what happens to the item once it is passed on.  The moment I made the decision to share, it was no longer mine. 

Now I have some items in my tickle trunk I would like to regift …… sorry, they do not meet the sharing criteria.