It’s the season of the gift guide. I spy a lovely plate etched with blue flowers, read that’s it’s a perfect spot for my mother’s jewelry.

Ah, I love receiving gifts, ones that are perfect and not so perfect. I love giving gifts. I love that I admitted it’s easier to receive them. Because when I give them, I’m thinking about the budget.

And then there’s the fact that the perfect gift is being together with someone you love. Love can spring from like, as in I love people I really only know well enough to like, because love is like a waterfall: once you open to it, it gives and gives and gives.

Last night I visited someone I know, someone I love but who I know enough to say I like her. But really I love her, because love feels easy when you let it in the door. But I bring her up because while I was there, her adult son, wife and grandchild arrived. And oh, the love expanded in that home. The grandson felt loved and easily talked with his grandma. Grandpa had made us all homemade pizza, and it was delicious from the care the maker took with it. Later, the grandpa told the grandma that her son needed coffee, and it made me laugh. Like grandpa couldn’t get up and get the son his coffee?

It so reminded me of my own mother and father. The love that spills out of them and onto us when we visit them. The homemade food. Or not homemade but bought from our favorite pizza place. How my mom or dad might want me to make them dinner now, or how my mom asks my dad to scoop her ice cream around 8pm each night, to bring her desert after the long day, no matter what kind of day it was.

I only visit my parents once a year now, but visiting my friend last night, I remembered the love that I feel from my parents when I am with them, and it was a gift. I’m not going to buy my mom a $50 plate, but I still can picture her jewelry on it. I’m still offering her a delicate, blue garland, china plate with these words. Even though I can’t be there in real time, part of me is there. Dad, can you scoop mom up some ice cream? Put some chocolate sauce on it for me.