Sunday Night With John: Now, That's A Gift

It’s an act we do often: give another a gift. Sometimes it’s a special occasion such as a birthday or anniversary.  Or sometimes it's a tradition, such as Christmas, and other times we hand out gifts at random. Any time we go through the act of picking out the gift we are giving away, we have hope that the gift will land on the recipient and relay our love, and care for the individual. This past Christmas I opened a gift from my wife. Two tickets to the Cleveland Cavaliers game in Chicago against the Bulls. I was over the moon with my wife wanting to send me to watch my favorite team play. The real power in the gift is that my wife contacted my brother who lives in Cleveland to meet me Chicago and go to the game with me.  My wife didn’t just give me a game to go to but an opportunity to create a memory with my brother, to reconnect with family, and to strengthen that family bond.

I arrived in Chicago around 9pm and my brother and I saddled up to the hotel bar to catch up. After the five minute chit-chat of typical catch up my brother said, “How stupid are we not to do this sooner? I mean you have lived in Iowa for a long time, I’m happy your wife did this for us.” I responded to my brother, “We are stupid for not thinking of this sooner, and Dave, I have never been happier and it is because I married a woman who thinks up stuff like this.” Dave looked at me and said, “I can cheers to that.” And as we clinked our glasses together he said, “We should do this once a year every year.” I nodded in agreement and my brother and I spent the next three hours catching up and trying to convince each other of our political views.

Just when the weekend and life couldn’t get any better, the doom of being a Cleveland sports fan reared it’s ugly head. The Cavs lost by three in the final seconds of the game. Leave it to Cleveland sports to remind me life isn’t perfect. The next morning we parted ways, him back to where I grew up in Ohio, and me to my home in Iowa discussing what we will do our on next rendezvous in Chicago….a Cubs game.

This gift was great because not only did it give me all the things I mentioned above, but it gives my brother’s family and my family a tradition. If only those ugly Christmas sweaters, or socks could have the same impact, the world we be as happy as I was this weekend.