The Last and Best Gift
Of hopes, dreams, and paper moons
Bruce Coulter asks: What is the best gift you’ve ever given?
Over my last six decades, I’ve given many, many gifts…too many to actually remember. Oddly enough, none of the truly memorable ones are Christmas gifts.
But the one I do recall vividly and has somewhat of a tie to Christmas though, is a gift I gave to my mother on June 4, 2014. It was not even actually intended for her but one which I had come to associate with her.
You see, this humble makeup bag was supposed to have been for me. And yes, I wanted it not because I needed such a bag, but because of the cat depicted there. It looked so much like my Flutter, Georgie, and especially Charlie. (After all, I rarely used makeup bags and already had many that I accumulated from those gifts with purchases!)
How I loved that whimsical scene: a shaded silver Persian cat resembling my silvers (the darkish gray telltale tail says it all!) is sitting on a roof. There is a dilapidated Gothic turret nearby. Somewhere in the distance, there’s a bird.
But most striking are the paper moon and star hanging from a clothesline that the cat is gazing at. They are just a tad out of reach…but maybe with just one bound, the moon and star are all hers? A paper moon, as some of you are aware, is associated with the concept of deceptive happiness: consider, for instance, the famous film Paper Moon (1973), where Tatum and Ryan O’ Neal’s characters pursue their escapades by means of illusions. (Even their perceived relationship is an illusion.)
Moreover, the designer of the bag had a name that no ailurophile and Anglophile could resist: Catseye London. Well, that’s it, I decided. I had to have it! Never mind that this 7" by 6" bag was rather overpriced at over $20 or thereabouts.
Evidently, it was quite a popular bag which had been backordered.
So it was with considerable excitement that I learned the bag was finally arriving five weeks after I had ordered it.
When it arrived one morning before we were all going to go for Mom’s check-up, it did not disappoint. As soon as I opened the box, Mom gushed, “How adorable!”
“Can I have it?” She asked. This was the first time she had ever asked for anything from me.
Now, as you all know, I really, really wanted it: I cannot emphasize it enough! But how could I not give it to her? Mom had just returned home three weeks ago, after suffering a stroke.
“Sure, Mom. Anything you want!” So she thanked me and stashed it in her purse. She would take it out every now and then as we were waiting to see the doctor to comment on how beautiful and whimsical it was, how the cat looked just like ours.
It was a happy day. Mom looked alert that day and her nurses at rehab remarked on how much better she looked. She seemed to be her old self, eating heartily. That night of June 4th, 2014, as I peered out the window to gaze upon the stars, I prayed that she would continue to improve.
But alas, that was not to be. Exactly four months later, on October 4th, she passed away.
The bag was now back in my possession — if it ever was. As I looked it again when going through her purse, I remembered that day, so full of promise. Recollections of her taking it out to gaze upon it flooded my brain. How happy she was — and how happy I was that day. How optimistic we both were, barely realizing the hopes were all a paper moon. I guess we were not unlike that cat, dreaming away, hankering for the moon and stars, bathed in our illusions.
The bag had become a prized relic, not because it was of a cat that resembled ours but because it was the last gift I had given Mom. It signified our bond, our shared love for our cats, and my fondest wishes for her. Little did I imagine that it would be my last present to her as my hopes for her health soared to the skies. I loved how she took so much pleasure in it — and came to regard it as an extension of her. Even now, this bag brings back memories of that beautiful day together, albeit tinged with a certain bitterness.
And so it remained with me over the following years. Until four years later when I nearly lost it for good.
It was an evening when I was visiting my father at a hospital around Christmas. I had taken it out when going to the bathroom and shown it to Dad afterwards. “Look at this. Isn’t this so wonderful? Mom really liked this…” and I went on to tell him about that day in June. “I feel close to Mom whenever I see and touch it. I can almost hear her again, thanking me.”
A few days later, when I reached in my purse, I discovered the bag was gone! I panicked.
My first guess was that I must have left it in Dad’s hospital room. So I called various offices at the hospital as I was transferred from one office to another. No one could find it.
Did someone steal it? Who would want a bag full of sticky lip glosses? I also called rehab, since I had gone there after his return from the hospital. No luck.
Then I found myself searching for a replacement on eBay. There were one or two, but used and going for over $50. No way. I looked for other cat bags, as well but to no avail. There was nothing quite comparable.
I was distraught and angry. Because I had never truly gotten along with my father, I rarely enjoyed seeing him and often felt resentful misgivings. Maybe if I hadn’t gone, I told myself, I wouldn’t have lost it. That I always felt stressed when visiting him probably made it worse: no wonder I had forgotten to put it back in my purse! (Yet, how was it that I never managed to lose it earlier despite all those other visits to the hospital and rehab?) And supposing I left it there, I couldn’t imagine Dad being mindful enough to notice it since his dementia was growing steadily worse.
I was convinced someone at the hospital must have stolen it. Maybe they were the ones selling it on eBay! I called day after day, almost in tears. I had to explain that this vinyl bag with a cat was of extreme sentimental value because it belonged to my mother. I’m sure all those who answered must have thought I was a freak. All that — for a vinyl makeup bag!
Then, on Christmas Day, I found myself grudgingly going to rehab to see Dad. It was going to look really bad, after all, if I didn’t see him on Christmas Day even if I had already had our holiday lunch with him yesterday. Could I bear to see any more happy (adult) children and their parents, both mother and father? Was I going to feel miserable all over again?
When I arrived, I told Dad about how upset I was about the loss of the bag.
“Do you mean this?” He held it up.
I screamed. “Where did you find it? I’ve been calling the hospital for days!”
“I noticed you left it by the window when you were at the hospital, so I got up and put it in my clothes bag immediately. I tried to tell you yesterday that I had it, but you were hurrying out.”
No wonder the hospital staff didn’t see it at all. (Or the nurses at rehab.) I felt like an idiot. Meanwhile, here was Dad who noticed it and stashed it away quickly, despite being bedridden and burdened with dementia. And there I was blaming everyone. (Talk about illusions!) So I treated Dad to a pile of pancakes. Never mind if I had to wait another two hours.
Finding the bag again felt like a Christmas present and the best that I’d ever gotten — well, next to the watch Mom gave me four years earlier. Sometimes dreams do come true! It was a real moon, not a paper moon. (But if only I could have my mother once more…) When I stayed up with Dad all night — the night before he passed away — his retrieval of the bag came to mind several times. I felt almost close to forgiving him for everything he’d done to me over the years. (Yes, he knew how much that bag meant to me! He knew how much Mom meant to me.)
And today, on what would be Dad’s 93rd birthday, I think to myself how strange and curious it is that this humble bag, with all of its accrued hopes and illusions, represents a bond between the three of us.
Who knew a paper moon could do all that?
© Frances A. Chiu, December 29, 2023. All Rights Reserved.
