This past week, I read a short story—only about 200 words long—that has lingered in my mind ever since.
So, I wanted to share it with you.
It appears in Anne Lamott’s best-selling book about writing, Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.
I first read this book back in high school, more than ten years ago, but I wanted to revisit it now that I’m writing more seriously. I remembered it as a particularly useful book about overcoming procrastination, and it certainly is. However, one anecdote—one I had completely forgotten about—really stood out to me.
The anecdote appears in a chapter titled “Giving,” where Anne explains that as a writer, you need to give your best work at all times. The writing gods (or muses, or the universe—whichever you believe in) will reward you for this. Her advice is simple: You can’t store away what you think are your best stories for a later time because, in truth, you may never get to use them. The same concept applies to life—why not give your best effort right now, while you have the chance?
But I digress. Anne writes:
Here is the best true story on giving I know, and it was told by Jack Kornfield of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre. An eight-year-old boy had a younger sister who was dying of leukemia, and he was told that without a blood transfusion she would die. His parents explained to him that his blood was probably compatible with hers, and if so, he could be the blood donor. They asked him if they could test his blood. He said sure. So they did and it was a good match. Then they asked if he would give his sister a pint of blood, that it could be her only chance of living. He said he would have to think about it overnight.
The next day he went to his parents and said he was willing to donate the blood. So they took him to the hospital where he was put on a gurney beside his six-year-old sister. Both of them were hooked up to IVs. A nurse withdrew a pint of blood from the boy, which was then put in the girl’s IV. The boy lay on his gurney in silence while the blood dripped into his sister, until the doctor came over to see how he was doing. Then the boy opened his eyes and asked, “How soon until I start to die?”
I love this story for two reasons.
The first is the obvious—it’s entirely wholesome. It makes you think to yourself, “Wow, what a brave little boy.”
The second reason is the hilarity that must have unfolded immediately after the boy said this. I like to imagine all the adults in the room—the doctor, the nurse, maybe the boy’s parents—turning to one another with dumbfounded expressions and saying, “Didn’t you tell him?”
It’s a communication breakdown of epic proportions—a truly comical blunder. The only reason we stop and say, “Wow, what a brave little boy,” is because the adults in the room messed up so spectacularly.
This got me thinking about the “Season of Giving” in general.
Around Christmastime, if you celebrate, you might feel immense pressure to come up with a gift list of utterly useless things you neither need nor truly want. It’s as if the moment your family asks what you’d like, your mind is wiped clean of any material desires. Congrats, you’re basically the Buddha now.
But on the flip side, you might spend an absurd amount of time scouring gift lists and various Amazon pages, hoping to find the perfect gift for your father or uncle or some other male relative who really just wants a Home Depot gift card.
So, you get the dumb gift card.
And then you ask yourself: what’s the point of “giving,” anyway?
And then you remember: 2,000 years ago, three wise men gave precious gifts to a baby, and now, somehow, that tradition has evolved into you getting your Uncle Bob a Home Depot gift card for the family Secret Santa. When you think about it through that lens, you realize just how bizarre the whole thing is—a domino effect so absurd and so unlikely that it has culminated in this moment. Here you are, stuffing the Home Depot gift card into a pair of thick socks that were on sale at Kohl’s because your mother insists, “You can’t just give someone a gift card. It has to be packaged somehow.” So, you choose socks instead of a greeting card.
The point is this:
The whole act of giving can leave you feeling like you know nothing about a person—and, perhaps more unsettlingly, like you know nothing about yourself.
We weren’t meant to give gift cards or socks or other random items that inevitably end up stuffed in a drawer or a closet or a bin.
Maybe we’re meant to give—and to receive—the way the boy and his sister did: innocently, bravely. Maybe what the people in my life need, and what I myself need, is the reassurance that I am there for them, and they are there for me.
Long story short, I don’t want to be like the adults in Anne’s story who forgot to tell the boy he wouldn’t die. I don’t want to let the “Season of Giving” become another communication breakdown.
If life were easy, and relationships were less complicated, I would just ask people what I can really give them: my time, my attention, the support they truly need but might not ask for.
But that’s easier said than done, isn’t it?
It’s not easy to sit down, after your third glass of spiked eggnog, and look your Uncle Bob in the eye to ask, “How can I be there for you, Uncle Bob?”
No, it would be far too uncomfortable and sentimental to ask something like that. You only see Uncle Bob a few times a year, after all. So instead, you just do what you always do. You smile and nod as Uncle Bob pulls the gift card out of the sock, tries to act surprised, and thanks you.
And, after a few slightly awkward moments, you respond, “Oh, it’s nothing. I got it at Home Depot.”
This past week, I read a short story—only about 200 words long—that has lingered in my mind ever since.
So, I wanted to share it with you.
It appears in Anne Lamott’s best-selling book about writing, Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.
I first read this book back in high school, more than ten years ago, but I wanted to revisit it now that I’m writing more seriously. I remembered it as a particularly useful book about overcoming procrastination, and it certainly is. However, one anecdote—one I had completely forgotten about—really stood out to me.
The anecdote appears in a chapter titled “Giving,” where Anne explains that as a writer, you need to give your best work at all times. The writing gods (or muses, or the universe—whichever you believe in) will reward you for this. Her advice is simple: You can’t store away what you think are your best stories for a later time because, in truth, you may never get to use them. The same concept applies to life—why not give your best effort right now, while you have the chance?
But I digress. Anne writes:
Here is the best true story on giving I know, and it was told by Jack Kornfield of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre. An eight-year-old boy had a younger sister who was dying of leukemia, and he was told that without a blood transfusion she would die. His parents explained to him that his blood was probably compatible with hers, and if so, he could be the blood donor. They asked him if they could test his blood. He said sure. So they did and it was a good match. Then they asked if he would give his sister a pint of blood, that it could be her only chance of living. He said he would have to think about it overnight.
The next day he went to his parents and said he was willing to donate the blood. So they took him to the hospital where he was put on a gurney beside his six-year-old sister. Both of them were hooked up to IVs. A nurse withdrew a pint of blood from the boy, which was then put in the girl’s IV. The boy lay on his gurney in silence while the blood dripped into his sister, until the doctor came over to see how he was doing. Then the boy opened his eyes and asked, “How soon until I start to die?”
I love this story for two reasons.
The first is the obvious—it’s entirely wholesome. It makes you think to yourself, “Wow, what a brave little boy.”
The second reason is the hilarity that must have unfolded immediately after the boy said this. I like to imagine all the adults in the room—the doctor, the nurse, maybe the boy’s parents—turning to one another with dumbfounded expressions and saying, “Didn’t you tell him?”
It’s a communication breakdown of epic proportions—a truly comical blunder. The only reason we stop and say, “Wow, what a brave little boy,” is because the adults in the room messed up so spectacularly.
This got me thinking about the “Season of Giving” in general.
Around Christmastime, if you celebrate, you might feel immense pressure to come up with a gift list of utterly useless things you neither need nor truly want. It’s as if the moment your family asks what you’d like, your mind is wiped clean of any material desires. Congrats, you’re basically the Buddha now.
But on the flip side, you might spend an absurd amount of time scouring gift lists and various Amazon pages, hoping to find the perfect gift for your father or uncle or some other male relative who really just wants a Home Depot gift card.
So, you get the dumb gift card.
And then you ask yourself: what’s the point of “giving,” anyway?
And then you remember: 2,000 years ago, three wise men gave precious gifts to a baby, and now, somehow, that tradition has evolved into you getting your Uncle Bob a Home Depot gift card for the family Secret Santa. When you think about it through that lens, you realize just how bizarre the whole thing is—a domino effect so absurd and so unlikely that it has culminated in this moment. Here you are, stuffing the Home Depot gift card into a pair of thick socks that were on sale at Kohl’s because your mother insists, “You can’t just give someone a gift card. It has to be packaged somehow.” So, you choose socks instead of a greeting card.
The point is this:
The whole act of giving can leave you feeling like you know nothing about a person—and, perhaps more unsettlingly, like you know nothing about yourself.
We weren’t meant to give gift cards or socks or other random items that inevitably end up stuffed in a drawer or a closet or a bin.
Maybe we’re meant to give—and to receive—the way the boy and his sister did: innocently, bravely. Maybe what the people in my life need, and what I myself need, is the reassurance that I am there for them, and they are there for me.
Long story short, I don’t want to be like the adults in Anne’s story who forgot to tell the boy he wouldn’t die. I don’t want to let the “Season of Giving” become another communication breakdown.
If life were easy, and relationships were less complicated, I would just ask people what I can really give them: my time, my attention, the support they truly need but might not ask for.
But that’s easier said than done, isn’t it?
It’s not easy to sit down, after your third glass of spiked eggnog, and look your Uncle Bob in the eye to ask, “How can I be there for you, Uncle Bob?”
No, it would be far too uncomfortable and sentimental to ask something like that. You only see Uncle Bob a few times a year, after all. So instead, you just do what you always do. You smile and nod as Uncle Bob pulls the gift card out of the sock, tries to act surprised, and thanks you.
And, after a few slightly awkward moments, you respond, “Oh, it’s nothing. I got it at Home Depot.”
