Columnist Tolley M. Jones: Wrapped love

Tolley M. Jones

Tolley M. Jones

By TOLLEY M. JONES

Published: 12-17-2024 5:19 PM

The silverware family in the sink swam in the Palmolive suds sea as I stood on the wooden step stool washing the dinner dishes. At 7 years old, I was too small to be able to reach the sink otherwise. My 9-year-old sister and I were responsible for cleaning up the whole kitchen after dinner, and while I washed the dishes, my sister cleared the tables, put the food away, swept the floor, and took the full paper bag out of the metal garbage can to dump in the larger can in the garage.

Since my brother was born a month after I turned 7, new expectations and household tasks were now ours to complete. Eventually we would be required to take turns doing the entire after-dinner cleanup, but for now I assume that even my parents knew that it was too big of a job for such small children to do alone.

I was lost in my imagination, supplying the dialogue for the knife fathers, fork mothers, and spoon children who gathered every night to swim among the plates and cups at the kitchen spa I created, when my mother bustled in, startling me out of my reverie.

“I told you I didn’t want to hear any talking! Go to your room!!” She was loud and angry, and we were confused — we weren’t talking. Obediently we went to our shared room, but this was also strange — punishments in our house involved pain, not gentle techniques like timeouts. As we laid on our twin beds reading, Daddy stood in the doorway, my baby brother in his arms, making silent silly faces at us about how nuts Mommy was being. This was also not a thing — my parents never spoke out to us against the other no matter what punishments were being doled out. But my sister and I still seized every shred of affection without question, so we silently made silly faces back at him.

“OK, you can come back in now.” Baffled, my sister and I walked down the short hallway and past the dining room table, surprised to discover that it was now covered with presents wrapped in the Sunday comics. As we walked by, we read aloud the names on the tags: “April, Tolley, Tolley, April.” But being compliant children, we didn’t stop to examine them — we had been ordered to go back to our cleaning so we went into the kitchen. Our parents had to explain to us that the presents were for us before we understood that being sent to our room was a ruse devised to create this surprise. And indeed we were surprised.

As Jehovah’s Witnesses, we did not celebrate birthdays or holidays, and we only saw people get gifts at weddings or baby showers. Even though my mother very occasionally would leave a new item on our bed to find after school — Holly Hobby pillowcases, and one time I found a new doll on my bed after my father threw away my beloved Baby TenderLove doll in a fit of rage and I went into an alarming depression after watching her get thrown into the garbage truck — these gifts were never wrapped with our names on them.

My memory of the rest of this evening is wonder as we all sat at our dinner spots in an oddly formal unwrapping. I remember the tag sale presents my mother wrapped in secret: a jewelry-making machine that came with beads and plastic links that became the bane of our existence as it would immediately jam when you tried to crank it to link the beads together into glamorous chains. A bust of a questionable fashionista named Candi that came with watery hair dye, weak makeup, and plastic rollers that never once left her hair curled.

For the first time since my brother came home from the hospital, my sister and I felt like we were the focus of our parents’ affections, and it was significant enough to us that I can vividly remember it 45 years later.

It is also memorable because that was the first and last time I was ever given wrapped presents with my name on it by my parents during my childhood. Here and there practical items were deposited on my bed for me to find: deodorant, nylons for going to Meetings, a new slip. But I never again had that warm feeling of being intentionally celebrated until I was an adult.

To this day I have still never had a birthday party thrown for me, and I have learned since by watching others that one can throw oneself a birthday party — but it isn’t the same as knowing that you are loved first and not merely in response. Because of this, I made sure that every chance I got I celebrated every one of my own children’s moments: birthdays, holidays, graduations — all with wrapped presents with their names on them. Even when I had no money, I wrapped up pairs of socks individually and put them under the tree so they would know the excitement of seeing and opening packages with their name on it that said “From Mama.” My children never had to wonder if I was happy they were there.

It isn’t the content of the present that matters, it turns out. It’s the fact that you matter enough to someone that they thought about you when you weren’t there, and made efforts to let you know that they are happy you are in their life. It turns out that even when you are all grown up, it still matters when someone wraps their love up and presents it to you.

Tolley M. Jones lives in Easthampton. She writes a monthly column.