Just What She Always Wanted

by Jill C. Major

What can I get Mom for Mother’s Day?” I asked the same question again and again, but still no answer came. Because it was the last year I would be living at home, I wanted to give Mom something extra special. When she unwrapped this gift, it had to say, “Thank you for taking care of me and loving me for the last 20 years.”

“Well, if there is such a gift, I should be able to find it here,” I said out loud as I pulled the car into the shopping mall parking lot. Each little store seemed inviting, but I felt drawn into the pet shop. The fluffy dogs and cuddly hamsters had always been irresistible to me. As I walked around the fish tanks, there it lay—a green, scaly lizard! My thoughts hurled back through time, and for a moment I was a child again.

“I caught it I caught it!” I screamed.

“It’s mine,” Sam said. “I saw it first.”

The lizard’s tail poked out between my fingers, and its feet scratched at my hands. It tickled, but I held the slimy reptile tight. “I don’t care. I’m the one who caught it,” I argued.

“Okay, we’ll share it,” Sam said. He was a smart brother. He knew when he had lost, but he also knew how to keep some of the winning prize.

We colored an old lunch sack with our crayons. Sam plopped the frightened lizard inside with some grass for food. “Happy Mother’s Day!” we shouted together as we held out the sack.

Mom peeked in the bag and then quickly closed it. “Where did you ever find it?” she laughed. “It’s just what I’ve been looking for.”

I smiled at the memory. A lizard was so right at four years old. What would be right this year? I checked my watch and hurried out of the shop.

“Can I help you?” asked the clerk in the stationery store.

“No, just looking,” I mumbled. I lifted a piece of fine embossed stationery from a box. It felt smooth and cold in my hand.

“Your mother will be pleased with that,” echoed Mr. Moss, my fifth-grade teacher as he looked over my shoulder. I reread the poem one more time to make certain it was faultless before I signed my name to it.

To Mom,

For the one I love the most.

For the one that burnt the toast.

For the one that cooks so great.

For the one I clean my plate.

For the one with lips so warm.

For the one with hands so torn.

For the one with great big feet.

For the one I love to meet.

I love you. I love you. I love you so true.

I want to express it in everything I do.

I folded it carefully. “Happy Mother’s Day,” I said, proudly holding out a homemade envelope.

Mom read it slowly. “It’s beautiful.” She smiled through a mist of tears. “Thank you very much.”

“Should I wrap that up for you?” the sales clerk asked.

“No,” I said shaking my head.

“It’s not quite what I’m looking for.”

Each shop I passed revived another memory. The music shop reminded me of the year we pooled all of our money as a family and bought Mom a banjo. She loves country music and often said she would like to play the banjo. We discovered later that the painful arthritis in her hands made her desire an impossible feat.

The women’s clothes store brought back the time I gave Mom money to buy a girdle. The next day she came home very excited. “Come out and see what I got with your money,” she called. It was a Mother’s Day surprise for me when I saw a dwarf oriental tree. From that day we all called that little red tree, “Mom’s girdle tree.”

The jewelry shop recalled the memory of a very special gold watch. I purchased it for Mom with the first paycheck I had ever earned. I wanted the engraver to put on the case, “To Mom, I think you are the greatest. With all my love, Jill.” Because of the lack of space, he wrote, “To Mom, Love Jill.”

As Mom received each gift, her bright face and sweet words of gratitude made me feel absolutely confident that I had picked out the perfect present.

“The mall is now closing,” announced the voice over the loud speaker. Slowly, I walked out to the car. My hands were empty. The evening was gone, and still I had not purchased a gift for my mother.

“What is wrong with me? Why doesn’t anything seem right? What is it that Mom really wants?” I asked myself. Then suddenly I had the answers, and I knew the gift I would give to my mother this last year that I would be living at home. It didn’t have to be written down, nor did it have to be wrapped up. It wouldn’t take as much effort to get as the lizard nor cost as much money as the gold watch. But still it was the perfect gift.

This year I would give to my mother my sacred promise to always love the Lord and keep all his commandments and serve him by staying active in his Church, all the days of my life. Peace and happiness filled my soul as I pictured my mother’s joyful expression when she received this gift. In my heart I knew she would say, “It’s just what I have always wanted.”

Photos by Marty Mayo