The Best Gifts Don’t Cost Money

The 29 Gifts Challenge teaches new ways to give gifts.

Is self-pity the same as depression? The day I received one of my most valuable gifts, I was sitting in a stew I couldn’t define, but it definitely had a whiff of “poor me.”

I’d had a scary, three-month illness that caused me one soul-searching night to call a friend from my hospital bed to ask her to be the guardian of my ten-year-old daughter if I didn’t survive. So, while I had no diagnosis for my bizarre symptoms, a brain tumor was on the table, and a few tests at that point had alarmed the neurologists.

Yet, on the day another close friend stopped by my house to say hello, I’d been released by my doctors as cured of a reaction to medications with no follow-up required. Basically, they said, go and live your life.

So why was I curled up on my couch, almost afraid to move?

That’s what my friend said one sunny Saturday when he checked in to see how I was doing? I don’t recall the nature of my complaints, but they weren’t medical anymore. His wife had waited in her car with their young children one terrible day to give me moral support while I had a test to see what was up in my brain. So he knew how frightening things had become. Why wasn’t I celebrating my complete recovery?

As I look back on that visit, I think I was in a state of over-protection, carrying the invalid I was in the hospital home with me. I hadn’t shed that vulnerable coil, so he diagnosed that condition and quickly kicked it to the curb.

“What’s wrong with you,” he said. “It’s a beautiful day. Why are you sitting around in this dark room? No wonder you’re feeling blue. Go for a walk. Take yourself someplace fun. Get out of yourself.”

Somehow, it had never occurred to me that I could just go back to being myself. I hadn’t figured out how to make the transition from my sick self to my well self, and with a few words of tough love, he showed me.

With the gift season upon us, I’m reminded of that life-changing gift and power of giving of ourselves in place of opening our wallets when we want to do something for a friend.

Instead of flowers or a box of candy, that personal visit and reminder of how to be me again was a gift worth more than gold. Those types of gifts often are, and often we don’t even know when we’re offering them to a loved one.

In her book, 29 Gifts, author Cami Walker, recounts her battle with multiple sclerosis.

Though finally diagnosed at age 35, her own frustrating symptoms were overlooked until a medical crisis after her marriage brought the illness to a head.

Roiling in her own mix of paralyzing depression and shock at the ugly news, all Walker could see was a life deteriorating physically, mentally, and emotionally until she had no life at all. Her fears mounted from the real — the actual disability that might result from the disease, to the imagined — the abandonment of her husband that was her worst nightmare.

And who could blame her?

The gift of this book was given to me by Rachella Barie in her article recommending her five most important reads.

In reading Walker’s transformation of living with MS to living despite MS, I was moved to undertake her challenge of giving 29 gifts for 29 days.

Among the insights I’ve received is the reminder that our most important gifts have no price tag.

Can you recall moments of rescue in your life when a friend or even a stranger came along and lifted you up? It may have been with a kind act or because they took the time to sit with you in a moment of despair or confusion and help guide you back to your path.

We’ve all had them. A friend takes the trouble to open a door that leads to a job offer just when we’re down to our last penny. A stranger stops to ask if she can help when you can’t get your car started on a rainy night in the mall parking lot. She just happens to have a charger for your battery.

These gifts glue together the pieces of our lives that threaten to fall apart.

But think of what it’s like for the bearer of these gifts. The good feeling the friend has when you call to say, hey, I got the job. Thanks for going the extra mile for me with your recommendation.

Imagine what it’s like for the stranger knowing she helped you get home to your family without waiting an hour for roadside service in the storm of the century.

That’s been one of the revelations of accepting the 29 Gifts Challenge. Discovering the gifts that keep on giving, in the sense of well-being I receive in my act of giving.

For someone with a lot of disposable income, it would be easy to play Scrooge the day after a visit from ghost #3, when he’s had his life-changing moment and buys the turkey for Christmas dinner and toys for all the kiddies.

What I’m finding is the sense of fulfillment from the degree of difficulty built into the challenge.

Money does not need to be spent!

In fact, the only time I’ve laid out cash from my meager budget was to make a donation to two local heroes. A couple in this city takes it upon themselves to care for the feral cats, including neutering, spaying, medical care, and finding permanent homes. Of late, creeps have been stealing their food and other supplies they provide for their charges. I made a donation in the name of family members as Christmas gifts. My reward was a photo of the cats eating out of aluminum trays of food near a construction site.

But for sixteen days now, my gifts have involved giving my time, my effort, such as baking surprises, or meaningful items I own to a friend. It is the gift of giving of myself that returns to me many fold. I don’t discount material gifts, but I guard my time as if it were money these days. When I break into my schedule to give to another, I receive the gift of self-knowledge. I can see how closed I can become, how I can shut out the world to pursue my interests or my work. But at what cost?

Sometimes we do things for another without thinking through the cause and effect. We can text a friend to say hello because it’s expedient, because picking up the phone might lead to a lengthy conversation, and we just don’t want to make the time.

But suppose that was your last chance to talk to your friend? My best friend was ill last year and I spoke to her almost every day. I had plans to spend time with her when she left the hospital and help care for her, so there were some days I didn’t call. Suddenly, she took a turn and then she was gone. No more phone calls. No visit to help her after she was discharged.

We all have those if only moments when we wish we could go back and make one more phone call, visit the friend while they’re still alive. Those memories fuel my gifts during this Challenge. Who can I visit, I think? What person has slipped from my daily call log without realizing it? We all love the story of the second chance. But they only work when life gives us a second chance.

My gift from the 29 Gifts is to make sure I don’t need a second chance with the people in my life. That I keep on giving them gifts every day, not just after this exercise ends. But that I remember them and honor them always because, after all, they are the people who make my life rich and fulfilling.

And that’s the point of the 29 Gifts for me. To make sure I never forget.

I’m an editor and writer on Medium with Top Writer status. I’m also an editor for the publication, Rogues Gallery. I’ve published 55 titles on Amazon and edit for private clients. If you’d like to hire me as your editor for fiction, non-fiction, or business writing, please contact me here. If you’d like to read more of my work on Medium, click here to sign up for my newsletter. I’ll make sure you don’t miss a word. Thank you for reading.