Some months ago, the editor of my university’s alumni magazine called with a request: “Could you write an essay for us on the theme of ‘The Greatest Gift I Ever Gave’? Is there a story like that in your past?”

I had to think about it for a long while. How does one place a value on a gift, either given or received? Unless, I realized at last, it is the giving itself that is the measure of true worth. I searched my memory, and there I found a story that I wanted to write…

Illustration by Vivian Flescher

Excerpts from “The Greatest Gift”

…God, it seemed, gave everybody at least one gift that must be nurtured and shared. I’d been told that I had such a gift: I could sing. So I sang…not just because I liked to sing, but because people seemed to like to listen. My father, especially, liked to listen…

…But as my father neared his eighty-fifth birthday his health began to fail and, fearing the worst, I made the long flight east…

… One afternoon as he lay resting, I sat nearby with my old guitar and, for as long as my voice held out, I sang to my father…

In writing that piece my thoughts were flooded with memories of my dad – and that was a gift in itself. You can read the full essay on the LMU Magazine website. And if you search your memory and find a remarkable gift either given or received, perhaps, in this season of giving, you might share it with me.