Time For A Change In Perspective - The Giving Chronicles, Part 2

 

Most life-changing events are big, prominent happenings, occurring externally but impacting internally. Then there are those subtle, quiet rumblings that impact from the inside out.

It was the first week of December 1987. I had returned home from a mentally exhausting workday. Within minutes, my wife had delivered the following news:

-       The refrigerator, which had been making strange noises, would need a major repair.

-       The VCR[i], which doubled as our video camera, had stopped working and would need to be fixed before Christmas.

-       My master’s thesis[ii], which my wife had been typing into our first ever PC, had vanished from the 5 ¼” floppy disk[iii].

Money was tight since my wife wasn’t working in order to raise our young, slightly-special needs daughter. Two major repairs would put a dent in the holiday budget. It would take weeks for the thesis to be retyped, putting me way behind schedule for the submission deadline.

If these events had been spaced out a few days, they still would have stung, but the impact would have been more easily absorbed. But hitting all at once was more than my psyche could take that evening.

I could not calm down. I kept rolling each of these events around in my head, like a closed-loop horror film that I could not turn off. After dinner and putting my daughter to bed, I plopped down on the couch and turned on the television, hoping that would provide a much-needed escape from my worries. But I couldn’t even concentrate on the program because it was being preempted by the one running through my brain:

refrigerator bill … VCR bill … lost thesis … refrigerator bill … VCR bill … lost thesis …

I couldn’t stop the loop while awake, so I decided to go to bed, even though it was just past 8:30. Except for illness, this is the earliest bedtime in my adult life.

However, I am not the least bit sleepy. I’m wide awake, lying there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, with the same horror loop freaking me out.

I was in distress; it was quiet, it was dark. So, naturally I reached out to THE CREATOR for help in my plight. And I learned something important. THE CREATOR doesn’t respond well when you offer up whiny complaints about your first-world problems.

First, there was the strong rebuke. “You’re actually complaining because your fancy, expensive VCR is broken?”

Okay, when you put it that way. I guess that it is rather petty. Let’s forget I even brought it up.

But it was too late …

Next came the revelation. I was told to imagine an expectant child running down the steps on Christmas morning, only to encounter just a Christmas tree, with no presents underneath it. (This is a powerful image – if you don’t believe me – quick, imagine it yourself right now.)

And this hit me where it hurts. Because I was an only child, which meant on Christmas morning, every single gift under that tree was mine, all mine. And better still, I was an only child of an only child, which meant every present under Grandma’s tree was also mine. (Gee, and you wonder why I love Christmas so much?)

But the image of that kid with no presents ravaged me. It tore my soul open, and I was hemorrhaging spiritual blood. “Yes, that’s an awful scene – but what can I do about this?”

Then came the command. My church had announced the previous Sunday they were collecting money to buy watches (apparently someone had an excess supply) to give to underprivileged kids as Christmas gifts. I immediately dismissed it as something I wouldn’t bother with.

But now, I was expected to donate more than token money to this cause? Oh, no! Absolutely not!  I got to pay for the refrigerator. I got to pay for the VCR. I got to pay for Christmas. No. No money left for watches. Okay?  Oh, not okay? Not okay, at all. $100? Really? Okay, really … 

So that Sunday, I wrote a check for $100 for watches for Christmas gifts for some kids I didn’t know and would never meet. And it did feel good to know none of those kids would go “giftless” this year.

The credit card took a hit, but the refrigerator got fixed. The VCR got fixed. And Christmas got fully paid for. It took my friend Fred, one of the early computer whizzes, all of five minutes to find where my thesis was hiding on that tricky floppy disk.

Christmas 1987 turned out great. And life went merrily along. But that encounter on that unsettling December evening would have a life-long impact.

 Footnotes for those younger readers:

 [i] Video Cassette Recorder. It recorded television shows onto videotape. Mine was an expensive model where the part containing the tape detached. A separate camera plugged into it to record home movies.

[ii] This was a full MBA which took four years to complete going part-time. A thesis was not required but I choose to do one through independent study because I enjoy researching an writing.

[iii] The first floppy discs were flimsy and had to be handled with care. You had to insert them into a “floppy drive” each time you started up the computer and then you saved your file on another floppy disc. The only way to “backup” your data was to save the same data on two discs, which you almost never did.