What is the greatest gift you can give a child?  A roof over their heads?  Regular meals?  Not embarrassing them in public?  A good education? (Note there is no talk here of the latest and greatest toys, gadgets, or vacations…).

I think the greatest gift you can give is a home filled with love.  With love, a child may never even realize how poor they are.  They may not care if they don’t own that perfect pair of high-tops or the to-die-for jeans from the Miley Cyrus collection. With love and nurturing, a child can excel at school even if there are years of bad teachers or classmates.  With love, the absence of a roof overhead and regular meals can build character and compassion rather than one of entitlement and rotten behaviour.

And that’s why today I am expressing my love and appreciation to my own Mom and Dad who are celebrating their 52nd anniversary.   We grew a lot of our own vegetables.  We had about three good changes of clothes – it was enough.  We got a doll at Christmas or a football.  We celebrated birthdays with our choice of a meal that night.  My brother always picked pinto beans which was “Ewww” to me but he loved those beans (and really they weren’t too bad with ketchup) and Mom cooked them to celebrate his day. We went camping in tents or a rented trailer instead of traveling somewhere exotic like skiing in the mountains or going on a Caribbean Cruise.

Mom and Dad – you gave us the best gift of all with the houses full of love (we moved a lot as a military family).  It didn’t matter if we found shelter in trailers, apartments, or single-family brick homes … we had each other.

Thank you and happy anniversary!