An Old, Dull, Scratched Sequin, Cradled in a Rock from Ukraine, a Gift from Maxim, my Friend, who is Now Living, Surviving, in Kyiv, Amidst the Constant and Increasingly Deadly Barrage of Missiles and Drones
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About a few weeks ago, on one of my proverbial walks around my neighborhood and a little beyond, I could see down the street a bit that I was coming upon a little girl who was standing by the open car door in her driveway, waiting her turn amidst the activity of her mother getting an older sister into the car. The little curly-haired girl saw me coming and looked at me and smiled and waved her little hand sideways back and forth at me – like the late queen used to wave, but more energetically. I waved back.
As I came to the car, I stopped and asked the mother – successfully getting the older girl at least into the car – if her younger daughter was always this friendly. She smiled and said yes, and the older daughter in the car moved to the center of the car to look at me and smiled over at me. I smiled back and asked her how old she was and the girl showed four fingers and I said, “Oh, four”, and she smiled, seemingly warmly interested that I was there.
Then as the mother and I chatted, the younger daughter – who seemed to be about two-and-a half – went to the open back car door and going halfway in, she seemed to be looking around and searching for something on the bottom of the floor of the back seat. After a few moments, she stopped, as if she had found what she was looking for, and then she straightened up, turned around and took a few steps towards me, holding something up to me that I couldn’t see between two little fingers.
I then extended my open palm, and she opened her two little fingers, and an old light rose colored sequin dropped into my hand. And I was totally amazed at this child’s gift, and I wondered how in the world does a two-and-a-half-year old remember that there was a tiny sequin fallen onto the back seat floor and going and looking for it already with the intent of making a gift of it to me.
She was so pleased and happy to give it to me, and she looked to me, and I said thank you many times and then she smiled even more.
Holding carefully the little sequin between two fingers, I said goodbye to the two little girls and their mother and continued on my way, eventually carefully dropping the sequin into my pocket.
As I resumed my walk, I pondered the gift, and I have come back to it many times over the past two weeks or so, always knowing since I received this gift that I would write about it, as I was so taken by it. But I also again wondered – as I always do when writing about something new that has deeply touched me – if as a writer, I could even begin to express something about what I wasn’t even sure myself – what I thought and felt and had learned.
At home, I carefully placed the sequin on a coaster in my study, but I knew that was just temporary, for as soon as something would get moved, the tiny sequin would get lost who knows where. So, I treated the sequin as a treasure, a brilliant gem – this sequin not even “worth” a fraction of the copper in a penny – but still a treasure to me, which it was already in fact – as is every gift from a child – and this little girl’s gift to me was to a perfect stranger.
But why is it a treasure? This is what I dwelt upon. For spontaneous gifts from children do not come often, especially to a stranger, for they are a way a child has found to physically express what is within them, here a spontaneous liking, a spontaneous physical extension of their own joy of life, the giving of something the child values – something pretty, something they had made, something which they had already gathered physically but also cognitively and emotionally within themselves.
It is a gift from a very young human life, and here, to me, all of a sudden without me doing anything other than waving back, but then happily and spontaneously acknowledging the gift behind the sequin, the joy of life that had already been given in the wave of greeting by this small child, this precious little curly-haired girl.
This is a gift that money could never buy – something that gold within a bank cannot compete with for the life that it brings within the recipient. A gift wrought by God in the heart of a little girl – who just in herself is beyond precious jewels. A gift wrought as a blessing for my soul, wrought as something I would write about and share with those who I described in the About tab of my website as those who appreciate what I write about and how I write and express my thoughts. Thoughts which are now even more entreasured within the gift of this sequin and everything that it was to the little girl.
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And now, what about the rock in which the sequin now rests and is enshrined within?
That rock is one of the three rocks that my friend in Ukraine, Maxim – who is now living, surviving, in Kyiv, amidst the constant and increasingly deadly barrage of missiles and drones – found along a riverbed or seashore, I forgot exactly where, which he gave me as a gift one time before the war, when he came under our roof while attending a church conference in Los Angeles.
One of the other rocks was an interesting water-weathered piece of green glass which in time, I came to appreciate for its soft greenish smooth rounded contours.
The third rock was a brownish grey sedimentary rock on the surface – dull, uninteresting, and common – except for the fact the rock had been broken, a clean break, revealing within the larger surrounding rock a much smaller stone of two shades of lighter more vibrant gray streaked and dabbles with white – an image of Maxim in some ways, as the longer you knew him as a friend, the more the hidden strength and the multiple shades of his kindnesses, humanness, and spirituality were revealed – housed in a very solid core.
However, I think my favorite stone was always the one in which I placed and finally sheltered the treasured sequin within. I liked the smooth contours of the stone, and I liked the contrast between its smooth whiteness and the pitted reddish-brown of the center, the brownness echoing the almost pointed oval of the stone. Something like a baseball mitt.
Now, I doubt that Maxim ever viewed this rock in the way I came to think of it, as only over time did I begin to appreciate all the interesting and even beautiful aspects of this stone, but I do now.
And this is the essentialness of thoughtful gifts between close friends – gifts of what they actually are, yes, but which also grow in meaning and significance, as the relationship, the friendship, grows and matures, with seemingly an inherent intent and will and dynamic energy of its own.
These gifts, these objects, become as a tree, deepening and expanding its roots within our soul year by year, and leafing and spreading above, enlarging the shade and comfort from the heat and troubles of the day. This image is the reality of what love does within the heart and soul of another – a gift of strength and kindness growing within the soil of given love.
So now, it seems fitting that the gift – a scratched and battered pale rose-colored sequin – a gift the little girl had already gathered within herself – should now be embedded within the gift I received from Maxim – a gift sitting on display in my study for years, a gift with years of meaning. And now it hosts the sequin, not even worth a fraction of the copper of a penny – becoming like a sparkling jewel, sheltered within a wondrously carved open shrine of child-given love and thankfulness for it.
Like love bestowed within us.
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RESOURCE SECTION
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To View all Posts in the Moments of Seeing & Occasional Pieces, Please Use the Link Below.
Moments of Seeing & Occasional Pieces – Writing In The Shade Of Trees
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To View all Posts in Little Treasures, Please Use the Link Below.
Little Treasures – Writing In The Shade Of Trees
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May the heroic, incredible people of Ukraine get through this latest onslaught from Putin. Their endurance is a great example for all democracy-loving peoples around the world.