For Valentine’s Day one year, my dad gave my mom a massage table.
I was about thirteen at the time, and I watched this slow-motion car wreck occur right before my eyes. We were sitting in the living room, and after my mom read the card my dad had given her, he jumped up and stepped out into the garage.
A moment later, he returned carrying a folded wooden table with a purple padded top. As he opened up the contraption and extended its legs, my mom’s neck turned a dark shade of red. He actually said “Ta-Da!” when he’d finished, and that’s when my mom lost it.
She stood up and growled something about hating massages and accused my dad of buying the table so she could massage him. When she stormed out of the room, my dad looked at me and shrugged. Roses, I thought. Always go with roses.
My dad was never a good gift-giver, and he thought most gift-giving occasions, like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and even anniversaries and birthdays, were plots schemed up the by the greeting-card industry in order to move product. My mom came to expect disappointing gifts from my dad: the fountain pen, the travel steamer, the set of super absorbent coasters. “You shouldn’t have,” she would say before unwrapping what she knew was another box of pears from Harry& David.
I somehow inherited my dad’s talent for mindless giving.
Flowers and spa gift cards are my normal go-to’s. I realize these gifts are not romantic or charming, but they are safe, and, to use a word my dad often used to describe his gifts, adequate.
My wife, Jess, has come to terms with my lack of imagination. A couple of weeks before her birthday or Christmas, she will email me links to items she wants. “Just in case you need some ideas,” the subject line always reads.
But on Christmas morning this past year, I was ready. Mixed in with the presents purchased from Jess’s email lists was a small box tucked far back under the tree. When Jess finally unwrapped it, her eyes filled with tears. The box contained a dozen vintage postcards from places we’d visited together along with a small antique frame in which to display them.
I’d scoured the Internet for a month to find the perfect cards from just the right places. It was a sentimental bull’s eye, and as Jess embraced me, I experienced an emotion I’m not used to—pride. But suddenly another feeling came over me: anxiety. I’d raised the bar and wondered how I would ever keep it up.
