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Posts Tagged ‘Laura’

Expressing gratitude: with meaning

Jan 8th, 2009
by ianpeatey.
15 comments

As a kid I used to hate this post-Christmas and post-New Year period. The Christmas decorations came down a couple of days ago, school had opened again, TV got boring once more and those new toys either started to fall apart or at least were  losing their novelty value. But the part I hated more than anything else were the couple of tortured hours of the ‘Ritual Of The Thank You Note’.

My mother, with positive and compassionate motivation, would sit the three children down at the table and put pens and a pile of blank pieces of paper in front of us. She’d probably been trying to do this for more than a week by now and we’d stretched it out and delayed. Now there were no excuses left.

She would take out a list of all the presents left by Santa, each marked with the name of a relative or family friend. Our task for the next few hours was to write a personalised thank you note to each of the names expressing our gratitude and appreciation for the gifts received.

I had several problems with this routine.

First, everyone knew that Santa brought the presents so I couldn’t see any point in thanking Auntie Susan and Uncle Ken. It was just plain wrong.

Second, as I was the eldest (still am, in fact) I couldn’t plead youthfulness and escape the task. In fact, if I recall correctly, I might even have had to help out my younger sister with her notes.

Third, it was a boring, joyless job and I would rather have done pretty much anything else than sit and write out the same note twenty times. It was like some school punishment when I was forced to write ‘I will not talk during lessons’ 100 times. The notes always came out the same and went something like:

“Dear Auntie xxxx

Thank you for the ______. I really liked it and played with it ___ times over Christmas. Santa also brought me a ____ and a ____ and a ____. We ate turkey and Christmas pudding for lunch and went for a walk afterwards. The temperature was __ C which was mild/cold/ average for the season. Then we watched TV all afternoon while Dad drank beer and sang carols. I had a great day.”

I realise that round about now I’m sounding like a spoilt kid, which I probably was.

The point is that it’s very easy to say ‘thank you’. It’s not so easy to really mean it – I never did in all those ‘Thank You’ notes. All too often it’s used as a throw away comment, a social nicety or obligation of cultural politeness. Even today I often catch myself expressing thanks without any connection to the gratitude and appreciation behind it, and it’s not something I’m proud of.

A few years back I tried a different way with Laura when she was about the age at which I hated the post-Christmas letter writing. She’d received a gift from her grandparents and I offered her a choice:

“Do you want to do these notes the usual way or try another way? The new way will take a little longer because we’ll need to think more about what we’re saying ‘thank you’ for.”

She wanted to do it the longer way, which was a pleasant surprise. I asked her to think about two things:

1.    what she’d felt when she opened the gift and to describe those feelings in her note. Did she feel excited? surprised? delighted? relieved? touched?

2.    what this gift meant to her and how it made her life better in some way. Did it make her life easier? more comfortable? more beautiful? more enriched?

I’ve found that those two elements add a much greater richness to my gratitude. It works for anything and everything I’m grateful for be it gifts, actions, words of others or simply the small blessings around me everywhere. What feelings are inspired in me and how does it enrich my life.

Much more satisfying than a simple ‘Thank You’.

How do you express your gratitude when you really want it to be heard?

Meeting Tom

Sep 10th, 2008
by ianpeatey.
3 comments

There are some defining moments in the life of a parent. The first time you see your child, first smile, first steps, first words, first ‘I love you Daddy’, first tooth, first day at school. Many of these are easy to miss in our busy lives. This is especially true if, like me, you live apart from your children and witnessing these precious moments is not to be taken for granted. There is one event though that is entirely reserved for fathers with daughters. No-one can take this away and, if it happens, it’s not possible to miss!. First meeting with your daughter’s boyfriend.

This last weekend marked this key moment for me when I met Tom, the boyfriend of my first daughter, Laura. For shorthand I’ll refer to this as ‘Meeting Tom’.

I’ve known about Tom’s existence for some weeks now. I had recently been in Wales for my sister-in-law’s 40th birthday and Laura was there. She spent more time checking her mobile phone for messages than she did anything else and I learned very little about the mystery man. Laura was not too keen to talk too much about him, I sensed out of some uncertainty about my reaction. This last weekend I was back in England for a couple of reasons and I decided to bite the bullet and invited them both to lunch with Mona (my partner). Now, no father of any of my girlfriends ever did that, so it was something of a new experience for me. For Laura too, I guess. And for Tom.

I carefully practiced with Mona all the things I was supposed to ask. What were his prospects? What intentions did he have towards Laura? Did he come from a good family? I was building myself up to play the role of ‘father-in-law-from-hell’. In retrospect this was my attempt to settle my nerves! Me, nervous at meeting a 16 year old Tom? Hell yes! Who was most nervous? Hard to say, but probably a close thing between Laura and me. Tom seemed pretty cool, as did Mona. Even Wendy, my ex (yes, it’s complex!), was surprisingly cool too.

I needn’t have worried as the lunch was pretty laid back. I broke the ice by getting lost trying to find the pub we were heading for. The ‘Green Man’ in Hurst if anyone knows it – impossible to find. I quickly established my credentials as a seriously flawed navigator. I think I might even have hit a kerb while driving, just to add to the tarnish on my reputation. I got lost again later on the way back, but by then I think it was to be expected. We quickly established a common interest in football (he’s a Newcastle United supporter) and a common goal in trying to get both Laura and Mona interested in the glorious game. To no avail. And chatted about school a bit, and other safe topics. I decided to leave the fatherly interrogation until a future meeting.

Meeting Tom was a multi-layered experience for me.

On the surface, an enjoyable lunch in a country pub with a couple of kids (can I call two 16 year old human beings ‘kids’?).

I enjoyed seeing something of me at 16 in Tom. It could be that I’m projecting something and that he is nothing like me at all. Or maybe there is truth in the Freudian (?) idea that we are often attracted to people who resemble our parents. I don’t know, but I definitely saw something of me in Tom. Dear Tom (or Dear Laura for that matter), if you read this, I hope you are not offended, but something in his polite and laid back manner, his physique (I was thin and ‘gangly’ at 16 too), his face expression and his long-ish and unkept-ish hair reminded me of myself.

I enjoyed seeing how Laura (really sweet 16!) has blossomed into an attractive, intelligent and confident young woman. Seeing her ease and connection with Tom was a real pleasure. She has matured and grown into a wonderful human being and much credit must go to her mother. I’ve hardly been involved in raising her. At 16 there are few signs of the child, though they are there still, you need to look quite hard to find them. An occasional childish giggle and a strange liking of X-Factor. The child is nearly gone and this attractive, intelligent and confident young lady has taken her place.

I felt a little confused seeing a new side to Laura. The woman in her. It’s not that I don’t like it, just that it’s new for me and I’m not yet sure how to relate to it. This was most clear to me when we got back to Laura’s home. Wendy was out visiting her sister so it was just the four of us. Should I stay or should I go? Remembering the kind of things preoccuping my mind at that age and uclear about the house rules, I decided to stay until Wendy returned. I was too embarrassed to raise the question, quite content (though a little awkward) to sit and wait. Possibly Laura and Tom wished us to leave so they could grab a moment on their own. If so, they were even more embarrassed than I was to say anything. Or maybe young people of today have different things on their minds than I had when I was 16.

I was surprised by how important it is to me what Laura thinks and feels about me. I don’t necessarily see this as a positive thing as it’s somehow a barrier to me being as authentic and as open as I would like. On the other hand it reminds me how precious are the times we spend together. We don’t see each other as much as I would like and there are almost always other people about. I’m often left with disappointment that I don’t make the most of my visits or more frequent visits. I wonder – does anyone spend as much quality time with their children as they would wish?

Finally, seeing her with Tom left me feeling sad. Sad for all those years when I did not have her to myself, father to daughter. Mourning all those other defining moments I missed through the choices I’ve made. Happy and sad that the child I hardly knew has changed into a woman.