A personal experience: simple gifts mean the most
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When I got home from work tonight I found a pile of clothes on my bed. My wife informed me that they were old and I should go through them and decide which should be donated and which I wanted to keep.
After sorting through some of the clothes (”I haven’t seen you wear that since we’ve been married!”) I put most of them in the donate pile and walked to the closet to hang the rest. When I slid open the door I was greeted with all my dress shirts hanging, evenly spaced, color-coordinated and ironed.
Knowing how frustrated I can get when I have to iron a shirt in the morning (it’s just one more thing to do before getting out the door), my wife took a good portion of her day to not only iron my shirts, but to clean out the closet so there would be room to hang them so they wouldn’t be wrinkled.
She’d even sewed a missing button back on one of the shirts.
I turned around and looked at her. She was looking back with a smile on her face and a look in her eyes that simply said, “I love you.”
It meant the world to me.
This wasn’t a present, it was a gift, one that would seem so small to so many people. In fact, you may be reading this right now thinking, “So…?” and if I were to describe it to someone at work tomorrow they might say something like, “Oh, that was nice of her.” But it means so much more to me.
It’s not that I don’t have to iron those shirts this week. It’s not that I no longer have to get around to sewing that button back on. It’s that she knew something she could do for me that would make me happy and she went out of her way to do it.
Whether it be in a marriage, a work environment or to a stranger on the street, the way we treat others is very, very important to our happiness. It’s the simple, seemingly little things we do for each other on a day-to-day basis that develop relationships, show appreciation and reflect who we really are.
Personally, I hope I can be more like my wife.
LivSimpl
P.S. Share the love! Do you have any similar stories? What are some little things people have done that made you feel like a million bucks? Leave word in the comments.
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Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Gratitude, Holidays, Home, Simple Pleasures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Reading your story made me remember a simple act of kindness that my wife did for me.
A few months ago, she went with her cousin to their timeshare for the week. They left at noon on a Monday, so the morning was filled with packing and other preparations on top of the normal duties of feeding the baby, showering, etc.
When I returned home that evening after work, sad to come home to an empty house, I realized that there was a basket of laundry that we had washed over the weekend that needed folding. I sat down to watch a movie, intending to fold the clothes as I watched (it’s too hard for me to fold laundry without doing something else at the same time), and to my pleasant surprise, I found the basket full of folded clothes.
That act of kindness wasn’t necessarily for me, but it made a world of difference – I felt an immense amount of love for her for having done that on top of everything else she had to do that morning. And plus, she doesn’t even like folding laundry.
love this post. it really is the little things that mean the most. thanks for the reminder.
Once my then boyfriend now husband bought me a box of Popsicles when he was at the grocery store because I had a sore throat. It was that day that I decided to marry him. Not really, but I should have.
Very nice post! I received a similar gift last week. I had a hard week and my girlfriend did everything at home: Cleaning, ironing, errands etc. Normally we do this both together because she is working too. But last week she did not only the urgent things but also my todos (like ironing my shirts etc.). That was very very lovely and helped me a lot!
Ivan
P.S.: If you find some errors in my English, you can keep them. :-) My mother-tongue is German.
Thank to everybody for the comments! I admit I was a little nervous posting something so personal – I’m glad to hear it was enjoyed.
What a beautiful post – I so enjoyed reading this! As for my own memory of a meaningful gift: my husband is not a man who gives flowers often, so when he does they mean a lot. When I was pregnant with my last baby I got appendicitis and had to go into surgery. When I woke up from the anaesthesia,my husband was there and he gave me a small bunch of dark purply blue freesias. I don’t remember much during that fog of pain and drugs, but I do remember the freesias.
Don’t you think that the wold would be so much nicer if we all just did simple things for each other? I guess if we start in our own homes maybe it will spread! Thanks for such a great post. You must of a wonderful wife!
Thanks for the reminder – of both the small things that have been done for me and for the small things that I can do for others, if I open my eyes. Thanks!
This shows how times have changed. A man feeling extreme gratitude because his wife ironed his shirts? As a young wife it was simply expected of me, not a cause for even a simple thank you.
Mr LivSimpl,
I know exactly how you feel. I’ve always said that the best presents are the ones that we define the value, not someone else (i.e. Apple says ipod is ‘cool’, ergo – it’s worth $300. I say BS!). Thanks for the touching story.
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