You Don’t Really Want a Gift, Do You?

I appreciate you all. I really do. I appreciate all you good people in the world that strive to make this world a better place. I appreciate you under-appreciated – you teachers, you bus drivers, moms, dads, all service professionals. I do. But do we have to have a day to show our appreciation? Does it make us feel more appreciated? Do you really want a flower pot with my child’s finger print on it? Do you want a cute picture of my kid in a homemade picture frame? Do you want that spread of food you shouldn't eat two weeks before the start of summer?

We should do better at showing appreciation every day. It’s a shame that as a society we need to have appreciation days and awareness months to celebrate the often ignored.

I shouldn't need Teacher Appreciation Day/Week to make my child’s teacher feel appreciated. I should send my kid to school prepared. I should raise my child to value education and respect authority. I should take my family vacations in the summer. I should respect her experience and opinion in conferences. Does he really want my handmade gift to show my appreciation? At Christmas, in May, then again in June – how many coffee mugs does one teacher need?

Are these gifts even out of appreciation or are they just another example of over consumerism? Are we just trying to pin the best picture on our social media walls? Are we just trying to throw a band-aid on a broken limb? I know it sucks to be a teacher in a society that doesn't value education, here’s a doughnut. I know it sucks to be an ignored minority, here’s a month. I know it sucks to have cancer, here’s a pink pin.

You don’t really want a gift, do you? Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m just an uninspired gift-giver and an unappreciative gift receiver – focusing too much on the stress both cause instead of the joy. After all, nothing is more priceless than the look on a kid’s face when he gives a gift made out of love. Maybe that’s the idea for next year – skip the made-in-China soon-to-be-trash trinket and make a video diary of kids telling the teacher why they love him and appreciate her. I’m gonna pin that! (I mean, I would if I knew how.)

I Was Too Desensitized.

On Friday I wrote a silly blog about Elf on the Shelf and subsequently spent the next few hours stalking Facebook to see if anyone commented on my little blog. In one of my Facebook-stalks I saw a headline something to the effect of “Shooter 20 year old with ties…” I did not click the link. I thought briefly about the headline and thought that it had something to do with some shooting from earlier in the week. Some shooting I can’t even remember the details of. 

It wasn't until I saw the deluge of posts about children that I thought of clicking that news article. But even as I moused-over the headline, I didn't think much of it. The word “shooter” didn't even register an emotional response from me. I am that desensitized to the news of violence that the words didn't even bother me. 

It makes me sick. It is a shame that we live in such a media-hyped-up violent world that it takes the brutal death of 20 small children to register on our hearts and in our minds. But how soon before we forget? How soon before I am again desensitized?

I put my kids on the bus this morning, turned around and looked at the path of destruction they left and thanked God for it all because if I didn't have them making the same messes every single day then I would have nothing. 

If I didn't have them and their messes, I would have nothing. 

I can’t imagine what those mothers are going through today as they realize, through their unimaginable fog of grief, that it is Monday and their children should be going to school leaving behind unmade beds, piles of dirty clothes and every light on in the house.

As I walk around my house today turning off the lights, I will remember the children whose lights will never be left on again.

Let us never forget. Every time we turn off lights behind our children let’s not forget those children whose lights are off permanently. Let’s not forget those children that witnessed this horrible violence; those children who won’t let their mothers turn off the lights for dread of the dark.

Let us never be desensitized to this violence.