When your love language is giving
But Your Family Speaks A Different Tongue
My mother loved giving gifts — or money, especially to her grandchildren. She not only paid for scuba diving lessons for my son, but for one of his friends, too. She hired the same tennis teacher for a visiting niece as Oprah Winfrey hired from time to time.
Gifts were not only her love language of celebration, they were the salve she offered when things were tough. When I was getting divorced, she offered to send me and my fourth-grade son on a Harry Potter’s tour of Scotland. She really didn’t know how to express emotions by touch or in words.
Her offers could be problematic. Were they appropriate? Should this one be accepted, or declined as over the top? The complexity was multiplied by the tumult in our relationship, and the fact she sometimes reversed herself for no particular reason. Not to mention how hard it was to parse her actions for my child. The result could be a tossed salad of mixed feelings.
Washington Post Columnist Petula Dvorak has written a touching story about the gifts, especially Christmas decorations, she received from her mother-in-law. Dvorak writes…
