March 4 2023 (archive)

Gift giving is about listening. When you listen and watch a person they will eventually tell you what they want, and how they want to be surprised. This past Christmas the last gift I opened was a copy of the book Don Quixote. There was a note in the back of that book telling me to go outside. Im sure you can guess by now what I found when I headed outside, but you might not understand the significance of the way Abby delivered the note. When I was 10 or 11 my family’s dog died. I was devastated. I have a vivid memory of finding him stiff in the bed of leaves that we put together a few days before. His name was Don Quixote, and he was a wolf dog, just like Fezzick (the newest member of our family). Abby knew it wasn’t just about getting me a puppy. It was in part, about my childhood. Her gift involved listening.