The following is a story as told by John Claypool to illustrate the difference between a possession and a gift from his book Mending the Heart.
“During World War II, Gladys Meggs, a woman who had lived with us and taken care of our house all through my childhood, left for a better paying job in a defense factory in Nashville. In addition to the sadness we all felt, her departure provoked a small practical crisis as well: we did not have a washing machine, gas was severely rationed, and the closest laundry was several miles away. When one of my father’s younger business associates was drafted into the army and needed a place to store his furniture, however, we ended up with an old green Bendix washing machine we could use in return for storage space. At the ripe old age of eleven I was pit in charge of the family laundry, so for the next four years, every Tuesday and Friday, I practiced the ritual of coming home from school, gathering up the dirty clothes, going down into the basement, and doing the laundry in the Bendix. It was one of those old-fashioned upright models with a plunger in the middle that created all kinds of wonderful configurations of soap bubbles. The wringer was two rubber rollers, operated by hand. All of this is to say that during those years, I developed a very affectionate bond with the old green Bendix.
In 1945 the war came to an end and my father’s business associate returned home. One day when I was at school, a truck pulled up and took all of his belongings from our basement, including the Bendix. No one told me, however, and since it was one of my regular wash days, I gathered up the clothes as usual and went down to the basement. To this day I can recall my sense of utter shock when I saw that gaping, empty space where the washing machine had once stood. I rushed back upstairs in a panic and announced loudly to my mother, “We’ve been robbed! Someone’s stolen our washing machine!”
My mother took that occasion to teach me something very profound. “John”, she said. “you must have forgotten how that washing machine got to be in our basement in the first place. It never belonged to us, and the fact that we ever got to use it at all was incredible good fortune. Remember, John, you treat gifts differently from the way you treat possessions. When something belongs to you and it is taken away, you have a right to be angry. But when something is a gift and it is taken from you, you use that occasion to give thanks that it was ever given at all.”
John told this story in relation to his daughter’s death after a prolonged battle with cancer at the age of 9. It was this lesson, as taught by his mother so many years before, that encouraged John to proceed with his grief journey down the path of gratitude, as opposed to the path of resentment. John recognized that even in the midst of his grief, he still had a choice to make in regards to his attitude and to his path. I encourage each of you who are struggling with your own grief journey to carefully consider which path you are currently on and to not be afraid to seek out professional help if you find yourself on the wrong path.
