Auntie Charo's Soapbox

When I was a little girl(Ben Hur was learning how to use the chariot), I wanted the doll with the French doll with porcelain feet, beautiful real hair and lace dress...she would dress up my bed and I would have a pretty room just like my other cousins who had rich and pretty things that were imported from Spain. As I grew up, it was the imported shoes, the dresses ordered from the magazines that no one on Guam had, and all the other things that I was the first on the block that claimed to have it first.......oh the values(or non-values of the young!) I thought the same of gift giving to my parents....expensive perfume for my mom, expensive ties for daddy, expensive pens and expensive everything for other family members. Everything in my foolish head was material and if it had a big price, meant that it was a good and proper gift.
I think I was a follower of those people that put the advertising in the newspapers and television ads.
In today's PDN, there are ads for your mom's Mother's Day presents........buy her a cellular phone...from $99. to $329.! Poor mom, she probably won't even know that there are games on the darn things and that it'll ring different ways and have caller ids on the darn things....all she probably needs is a simple phone that works to call in the event that she has a flat tire and needs help.....then of course there's the expensive brunches that she'll probably hate because all the grandchildren will be there and won't behave and she won't have a chance to talk to anyone because the hotel will be so loud she won't be able to hear anyone over the loud-singing singer and the cost will be in the hundreds of dollars that she won't enjoy......
Likewise the ads and thoughts of gifts for daddy....daddy likes to read....History books, archeology books, you name it, he'll read it books....so those, he really appreciated...he liked the fish and grew them so big we had to move into a bigger tank the next year, liked the birds and liked pretty much everything he got so he was easy.....but the most he loved was the little kids scratching his back before he went to sleep at night.......there was no price for that........he loves to have me massage his feet, reflexology style.......no price, no wrapping.....mom just like the regular massage........
Wouldn't it be nice if this year, we just cooked a healthy meal for our parents(on Mothers and on Father's Day) and spent the day totally honoring them? Taking them to church, cooking their favorite food, taking them for a ride, showing them how the island has changed, buying them a mango or fresh fruit, massaging them after a family dinner and eating ice cream and watching the sun set....and maybe if one played a musical instrument or not a cd would do, sing a mutually loved son..........that memory would be recorded so far into the soul that nothing would ever wipe it away...and I promise, your parent will take the memory of the day with him or her to the next life....you see, the very thing you can give that's most appreciate cannot be wrapped in paper...it can only be wrapped with love and can come only from the heart....that only you can give....If your mom or dad needs a cellular phone, don't wait for mother's or father's day, buy them one today!