Garage Sales, Gifts, and Grace

My Grandmother Peitasch was known for having garage sales. This might seem fairly normal, particularly among the Steinbach crowd. But she put together a garage sale Every. Single. Year. It was an amazing accomplishment for a woman who eschewed material possessions and who scorned spending massive amounts of money for herself. Somehow she managed to fill those tables in her garage with items that others might enjoy.

What brought many people was her fabled sommer borscht "packages." Every year, she would combine fresh garden greens, dill, parsley and green onions into saran-wrapped individual packets perfect for busy soup-makers on the go. Folks would come from miles around to load up on these packages and also to pick up some of her carefully-packaged seeds gleaned from her notable garden.

One year, Grandma asked me if I would come and sit at her garage sale for an hour. She had an appointment scheduled, and wanted someone to watch over things for her while she was away. So I did, and most gladly. We got in a nice visit and she fed me some lunch.

Then she offered me $10 for my time. I laughed and said, "Oh Grandma, you don't need to pay me; I was happy to do it and you even fed me while I was here."

She got very serious. She told me a story of when she had once similarly turned down an offer of thankfulness, and repeated to me the admonishment she had received at the time:

"When someone gives you a gift, you smile, and say, 'Thank you.'"

Those words have stayed with me ever since. I find it tremendously hard to accept anything, be it a tangible gift or an intangible compliment or word of affirmation. Yet my grandma taught me that day that the giving of a gift is as much for the giver's sake as it is for the receiver.

To reject a gift, no matter how much one feels one does not deserve it/need it/want to put the giver out, is to harm the giver. It says, "I care more about my own sense of equilibrium and my own control of my world than your desire to bring into it a small bit of the personal joy into your world."

She also taught me many other things about giving. I most often saw her on the giving end, with her door always open for anyone to drop by. I never left her house without something in hand, either for me or for my kids.

My grandma passed away this morning. She had been ill, but not in a way that made us think her passing was imminent. It's been a tough day, tougher I'm sure for those who are actually there to care for my grandpa and to make arrangements. We'll be heading back to Canada tomorrow in order to attend the funeral. And I'm sure I'll remember many more things about her as we drive.

It's a sad day.