Presents are more complicated when you’re in care.
(Actually, that sentence could apply to almost anything. Holidays are more complicated. So is school. So are photos, and social media, and food, and hugs. But today I am thinking about presents.)
Hanh didn’t want any. He didn’t want anything from me – at least, nothing optional, nothing that demonstrated I was thinking about him and caring for him. He needed to keep me at a distance.
But it was his birthday, and regardless of his response, I wanted him to know that I was willing to celebrate him. So the kitchen was decked out with balloons and bunting (unacknowledged), and I iced his name and stuck candles into some of the muffins he liked (untouched), and a playstation appeared in the corner (played on all day – but with no recognition it hadn’t been there the day before). And a small pile of wrapped presents and cards, marked with his name, sat on the corner of the table he occupied.
For the whole day, they just sat.
I wondered if he was even going to touch them… and what I’d do with them if they were still there the following morning.
But once the day was done, he’d left his dinner to go cold and ignored his cakes, I left him on his own for a bit… and finally he cracked.
The envelopes were crumpled across the table, the cards tossed aside as if he hadn’t read them, and the paper dropped where he sat – but he was wearing the t-shirt my sister had ordered for him. An England football top, with his name across the back.
He didn’t know I sneaked a photo. And he didn’t know how broad my grin was - at least inside. He needed to show me that he didn’t want anything from me. And he’d nearly managed it.
Presents are more complicated when you’re in care.
Kayleigh was different. She couldn’t care less about presents from me – she didn’t seem to remember for five minutes where anything she owned had come from. Or anything she didn’t own for that matter. When she arrived, with two carrier bags of belongings that didn’t include her school shoes or a single jumper, we found she could quite happily wear my clothes – and so my best skinny jeans, and the only hoody she deemed acceptable, rapidly became hers. In her eyes. No, she didn’t need my presents. She could just take what she wanted.
She didn’t need presents from anyone else either. Presents are received, and she preferred to take. There are no question marks in taking, no worrying about whether you’ll be remembered or whether your wishes will be heard. You don’t get let down.
Kayleigh knew all about being let down. She didn’t know her dad. She lived with an aunt, because her mum’s ability to care went up and down, depending on drink and drugs and a procession of partners that left Kayleigh frightened and alone. And angry. No wonder she helped herself. No-one else had.
So Kayleigh wasn’t interested in presents.
And the one day she did see her mum – under supervision, in a soulless room at a Council contact centre – she helped herself. She bounded out, stuffed to the gills with chocolate and bouncing off the walls because mum had smuggled in an energy drink disguised in an empty bottle (really?! Did anyone really believe mum was bringing flavoured water?!) – and giggling, “You’d best drive quick, Bob. She’ll be after me. I’ve nicked her scarf!”.
And she had. It was vile – stained, patterned with skulls, and stinking of stale smoke – but that scarf did not leave Kayleigh’s side for the next two weeks. I couldn’t even sneak it into the wash overnight because she stuffed it into her pyjamas.
Kayleigh didn’t need presents. She just took what she wanted.
Presents are more complicated when you’re in care.
And then there was Ella. Ella really did want presents. She gave presents, she promised presents, she talked about presents non-stop. She made her birthday list on Boxing Day. She showed everyone the ring her godmother had given her, the card from the brother she missed the most.
When we got to Christmas, Ella’s mum said the presents had been ordered but that the delivery had been delayed. Ella believed it. She had to believe it, because presents were how she felt loved. They never turned up. She just stopped talking about them.
Presents were how she earned love too. She was forever promising to take the neighbour’s kids to the shops for sweets, or asking if she could bake biscuits to give to her gymnastics coach. She pressed half-finished pictures onto family members and made me cups of tea. She even tried to earn her own love, stuffing herself with as many treats as I would let her buy at once on pocket money day.
It really didn’t matter what the present was. She had boxes and boxes of unused gadgets and games she’d never wanted to play – but none of them could be passed on, because they were presents from someone she could barely remember, two or three placements ago. There were magazines she couldn’t read and kids’ story books she didn’t want to. She begged me for a bike and talked with great enthusiasm about how she’d love to learn to ride and to play out with the kids – but when the bike arrived, she touched it twice, and quickly abandoned it for something easier. She’d never really wanted a bike. She wanted a trophy – an expensive present, something to prove she was valuable.
But the effect doesn’t last… so she needed to ask for another present, fast.
And if a present didn’t quite work out – if it was too complicated, or didn’t fit, or it rained – then it went into limbo. It hadn’t worked, so it couldn’t be shown off; but it couldn’t be passed on either. It became clutter. The intention wasn’t enough – the errors made had to be identified, so that it wasn’t Ella’s fault. And effort on her part wasn’t an option. Presents are meant to be perfect, to slot neatly into the gaps lined up for them. Presents are only presents if they feel good.
Presents are more complicated when you’re in care.
Hmmm.
Are they? Or are the kids just helping us to see our own vulnerabilities, as they so often do?
I thought I knew where this post was going to go, but as I think about these scenarios I’m wondering…
Isn’t it easy to think of ways in which we pretend we don’t need any gifts – like Hanh? Aren’t there examples of the grace of God for us that we are ignoring, or disregarding, or pretending were there all along? What blessings have been showered on us today that we’ve walked past, paying scant attention? Or ways our characters are growing, or examples of protection or provision, that we’re pretending were there all along, or due to our own wisdom or merit or luck?
I didn’t notice the sunrise today. I’ve not glanced at the artistry of the sky once. I’ve taxed my car without being grateful for the system that reminded me, or the means to make the payment. I’ve done some work without recognising it’s a gift, without remembering I’m blessed in my story of free education and a career that’s developed the skills I’m drawing on now.
I remember what it felt like when those iced birthday muffins were silently cold shouldered. And I’m sorry.
I’m blessed beyond my ability to comprehend, beyond my ability to say thanks. But still, I can try. Thank you, Daddy.
And then – isn’t it also pretty easy to come up with ways in which we’re just taking what we need – like Kayleigh? It’s ugly, I know, but isn’t it also true that we are pretty good at grabbing, at fighting, at anxiously planning, at worrying, at padding our reputation and glossing our stories and building our empires? Where today have our lives revealed that we believe we’re on our own, we’ve got to push and work and hustle and gild our own way?
I worried about my to-do list today. I orchestrated events to try to bring about an outcome I’m hoping for. I’ve been political in my messaging and judgmental in my thinking; I’m often distracted by my own image. I’m working on it, but still I can spend hours in perfectionism that’s rooted in insecurity and a need to prove my own worth.
I remember how it felt when Kayleigh grabbed the cookies I’d made before I could offer them to her. I’m reminded of some teaching I heard recently on Jacob – who insisted on wrestling with God, even though the blessings he wanted were already lined up for him. And I’m sorry.
I’m utterly secure, loved beyond my wildest dreams, protected and provided for by the Lord of the Angel Armies. I can’t comprehend it all. But still, I can try. Thank you, Daddy.
And finally, what about Ella? It sounds contradictory given the last two sections, but we are riddled with contradiction – so can’t we also pretty readily think of ways in which we demand presents, presents, and more presents, not so much for the gifts themselves but to fill that aching need to know we’re loved? We’re invited to confidently ask – but aren’t we also whining, and demanding, and doubting, and trying to earn favour, and living so much of our lives as if we were still far from home, feeding pigs, lonely and afraid?* And when the gifts are complicated, or demand effort on our part, or we just don’t understand – don’t we shove those into limbo and shut the door quick?
I’ve had a couple of bits of good news today – and immediately fretted that the next item on the list hasn’t happened yet, demanding the next gift before the current one is even opened. My devotional times can so quickly become a performance, a task to be ticked off, or a source of guilt and sense that God’s not so happy with me today. I am praying for things I believe God has promised – sometimes stridently demanding, sometimes hedged with pious-sounding get-out clauses to save me from disappointment if God says no. And where I’m confused, I hide it, as if I’m ashamed of the way God hasn’t quite lived up to my expectations, and maybe if we forget about it quickly he’ll do better next time.
I remember how it felt to be presented with the birthday present list when I was so tired from trying to make Christmas special. And the sense of rejection when a gift was misunderstood, or passed over fast, or dismissed as needing too much effort. And I’m sorry.
I’m invited to ask, to live in expectancy, to trust that all the gifts my Daddy gives are good, even the ones whose goodness is outside my so-narrow-understanding. I need help for all of this, but I can try. Thank you, Daddy.
Every gift God freely gives us is good and perfect, streaming down from the Father of lights
James 1:17 The Passion Translation
*This is a reference to the story Jesus told about two brothers who got it wrong, and their Daddy who loved them through it all. There’s a post on it here.
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