An Unforeseen Gift
Audio narration by David Marlow
This sunflower is visible just outside the window by my desk. Today alone, it has been visited by two yellow finches, a downy woodpecker, and the bumble bee you can see in the picture.
I spied this plant coming up on its own a while back. Pumpkins, watermelons, and sunflowers have similar-looking leaves in the early stages. While I did know which it was, I could tell it wasn’t a weed.
My neighbor loves to feed the birds, and no doubt, this seed had been dropped by one of her visitors at the edge of my yard.
Other than watering it during our long, dry stretch and shooing away the wild rabbits, this beautiful flower came up without any effort on my part.
An unexpected gift.
It sparked the memory of another unanticipated gift. Though eight years ago, the recollection is as fresh as yesterday’s sunrise.
My father had passed unexpectedly a little more than a month before. I had spent the week with him in the deserts of Arizona, hiking and hanging out.
While unforeseen, that is not the event I’m talking about. It is instead another of those demarcations that separate life into two.
His passing being one marking the time before.
This other unplanned, unexpected event was the bookend to that demarcation. A similar ‘life will never be the same’ moment, though in a completely opposite way.
When they handed my grandson ‘E’ to me to hold for the first time, it was as if a new life had begun. His, of course, though I’m speaking of another.
I have a wide smile, and it has never been wider than at that moment. I remember thinking, “This is the first time in my life something awesome has happened, and I didn’t have to work for it or pay for it.”
It’s as if someone said, “Here” and hands you the most wonderful present you’ve ever been given, and all there is for you to do is enjoy it.
That’s what it is like being a grandpa.
You can’t work for it or plan it. Grandchildren are not up to you. And yet, here he was, this marvelous gift whose entire purpose seemed in that moment to be a blessing for me.
The gift of life, of course, is a similar blessing. We don’t work for it or pay for it. The difference is ‘life’ feels like it has always been there, ‘E’ has not.
Most curious is how he (and those two grandchildren that followed and, soon to be, a third) have made me appreciate THAT unexpected gift in ways I never could have before.
My dad always said if he had known how much fun grandchildren were, he’d have had them first.
Now I know what he meant. A new life began that day, it’s been a great one so far.
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So happy for you David! Gifts are given to us freely, with no conditions...this is why I believe they're so transforming. I don't have children, but my younger sister and wife are gifts that I thank God for each day...so much to be grateful for, we just need to look out our window, or in our heart.
What a delightful gift. Recently I have thought about Maya Angelou's comments to Brené Brown: 'People don't remember what you said. People don't remember what you did. People remember how you made them feel.' The experience of your smile says it all... 🌿