love, anyway
When I was ten and Jenn was nine, my mom and dad took us to Washington D.C. for summer vacation. The Washington D.C. vacation provided a lot of firsts for my sister and me. First time in an airplane. First time in a 5-star hotel. First time my dad gave us actual money for souvenirs.
Up until that point, he’d let us pick out a souvenir on vacation and then he’d buy it. But on the D.C. vacation he gave Jenn and I each $40. TWO TWENTY-DOLLAR BILLS.
I grew up in the country and all our vacation destinations up until my tenth year had been the beach. So when we landed at Dulles everything was new! and exciting! and wow, look at the taxis! and oh Dad, can we please please ride the subway? (“Metro.”) Fine, whatever. Can we ride the Metro? I liked the buildings. I liked the streets. I liked the way that people were rushing around being busy and important.
Jennifer, however, was concerned about the people sitting on the street.
“They’re homeless,” my dad explained.
“As in they don’t have houses?” my sister asked.
“Yeah.”
On our first night in the hotel I diagrammed my souvenir-buying strategy. I obviously needed a t-shirt, some pencils and a replica of the Lincoln Memorial. I asked Jenn to sit down and plot her spending with me. She smiled and shrugged and said that she’d given her 40 bucks to one of the homeless guys. She said he looked hungry.
I thought she was nuts.
My sister is big on the giving. She doesn’t need a reason, but she really likes to give on the getting holidays. She has a tradition on Valentine’s Day where she buys several dozen roses, wraps them individually in tissue paper, ties them with a ribbon, and then hands them out to waitresses and people who work at fast food restaurants. She couldn’t do it this year on account of baby Hogan has a cold, so I told her I’d carry the rose torch for her. It was the least I could do; I spent all $40 of my D.C. vacation money on myself.
Last night I went out with dozens of individually wrapped and ribboned roses to give away. My first stop was Waffle House where the waitresses giggled like little girls when I handed them their flowers. Then I went to Arby’s. “Are you frikkin’ kidding me?” the lady behind the register asked. “I am frikkin serious,” I said. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
When I was leaving one restaurant, I heard one of the servers ask, “I wonder why she did that?” And another one respond, “I think maybe…she likes us.”
Jenn only had one request for the rose delivery. She wanted to make sure that I went to a specific McDonalds that she visited the past two years. As soon as I walked into her McDonald’s six ladies came racing out of the kitchen and propped their elbows on the counter like little girls. “She came back!” they shouted to the other women in the kitchen. “She came back! Red roses this year! Red roses!”
They lined up and I gave them each a rose and my very best smile. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” I said.
A couple of weeks ago a fella named George sent me a song called Giraffes No. 1 by Chris T-T. It is the best song I have ever heard. It says that the first giraffe swam to England and wrote down some rules to live by:
1) Stick you neck out
2) Stand up taller
3) Don’t look down now
I think those are great rules and if I could add one more it would be:
4) Give on the getting holidays
My sister taught me that.
She’s nuts. I love her.
Comments
Giving on the getting holidays comes with the territory when you're a parent. There would be no getting holidays, after all, without giving. Someone's got to give and someone's got to get. It takes both. It's a good lesson, though, to learn to be a giver as well as a getter.
Very sweet post.
Hello, Heather Anne.
Posted by: scott | February 15, 2007 11:11 AM
Now that sounds like a great song... giraffes, swimming and giving... you can not get much better than that!
Posted by: ashlie | February 15, 2007 11:15 AM
I'm so going to make those giraffe lessons into something to put on my wall so my kids can see it every day.
You and Jenn... making the world a friendlier place, one restaurant at a time. I like you guys a lot.
Posted by: shari | February 15, 2007 12:18 PM
I don't get it. You like to give it all you've got. You're a real go getter. But then there's all this giving going on. I'm getting confused, so what gives? Oh, I've got it! You're a giving getter. I'll give you that.
Posted by: peefer | February 15, 2007 01:08 PM
What a great way to show some love on Valentine's Day! The last time I went to Waffle House, a waitress (named Peaches) was celebrating her 20th year working in that particular location. It'd take a lot of love for me to do that for 20 years.
Posted by: Emily | February 15, 2007 02:27 PM
I'd like to give a flower to the kid who works at Dunkin' Donuts. He has this look about him that is both sad and happy at the same time. I'd like to commit him to happy.
Posted by: Noelle | February 15, 2007 02:46 PM
You and your sister are awesome, but you really make me look bad in comparison.
My daughter is like that. I had to work on her to make her giving more organized, though. Once when she was 8, she was going to put flyers up with our phone number on them, to see if anyone needed money, so she could give them some. Luckily, I read them before she posted them.
Posted by: Churlita | February 15, 2007 04:17 PM
That's an awesome idea... I may use that sometime in the future... :) I'll credit it to you and your sister though, I won't try to claim it as my own.
Posted by: Aleathea | February 15, 2007 10:00 PM
That is fantastic. I am going to do that someday, too. (I know what it's like to work in one of those restaurants--no wonder those little MacDonald's ladies were so thrilled!)
Posted by: Talena | February 15, 2007 11:10 PM
I'm weeping.
Thank you, HeatherAnne and her sister, Jenn.
True transparencies of Christ.
Posted by: Sally | February 15, 2007 11:26 PM
Brilliant tradition!
Posted by: Jenn (the not-sister) | February 16, 2007 11:16 AM
Man - what amazing women you and your sister are. Inspirations both :-)
Posted by: Cee | February 16, 2007 05:39 PM
Sweet Heather Anne--
For some reason I think you need this poem. It's one of my favorites.
Karindira
____
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
--Mary Oliver
Posted by: Karindira | February 16, 2007 07:22 PM
Cool new look!
Posted by: Jenn (the not-sister) | February 16, 2007 08:48 PM
Karindira, I love that poem (as you know.)
Hello again.
Posted by: scott | February 17, 2007 08:23 AM
The giraffe song sounds awesome. Is it hard to get?
Posted by: Janet | February 17, 2007 08:52 AM
Jenn sounds like a great person. I refuse to give money to homeless people but if they are hungry I'll buy them food and if they can SHOW me they have an actual baby I'll buy them diapers.
Posted by: warcrygirl | February 19, 2007 10:01 AM
wonderful!
Posted by: Iris | February 19, 2007 11:05 AM
Ohhhh, you.
Posted by: Amanda Mae | February 19, 2007 12:33 PM
I used to think "oh, I'll never give money to homeless people", but I;m less cynical now. If a bum goes out and buys alcohol with it, I figure he must have something to celebrate.
Also, the giving of money to another person has less to do with what they will do with the money than the fact that you gave up some of your own comfort and your possession. Giving is more for you, than for them, in a way.
Posted by: Amanda Mae | February 19, 2007 12:36 PM
You're both nuts. In a truly awesome way!
Posted by: ~Tim | February 22, 2007 08:13 PM