Only right after the words, “I know!” popped out of my mouth, did my conscience remind me that “Thank you,” might have made a more appropriate response…

I committed that little faux pas several months ago.  I’d just met the lovely young proprietor of the most charming local antique shop, where it turned out my husband had done most of his Christmas shopping for me this past year.  I’d walked in, introduced myself, and begun explaining the reason for my visit when she smiled in recognition and said, “I just have to tell you:  Your husband is adorable!” 

I really should have said “thank you.”

But I didn’t.

I’ve thought that about him for at least thirty-four years.  What he’d just so thoughtfully done to earn that description from her had given me yet another incredibly special reason to, without even thinking, do nothing but completely agree.    

Thirty-four-years.  That’s how long we’ve spent together, so far.  Twenty-seven of them, married.  Gift giving has become… challenging.  Mostly in a “been there, done that” kind of way.  Especially these days, as we really work at getting, and keeping, our home in order.  We certainly don’t need extra “stuff” coming aboard, nor to waste time and money on just coming up with “something.”

Plus, I’m just pretty boringly content lately.  Last Christmas, beyond a special bowl for my Thanksgiving cranberries, (yes, that boring…) I don’t think I mentioned to him another single thing I’d even thought of wanting.    

But at the end of one mid-December day, he strode (quite purposefully) through the back door, faced me, and announced, “Well, I might have just blown it all!” 

(Pause here?  Imagine my possibly-slightly-alarmed confusion?)

Thankfully, he quickly elaborated: “I went completely out-of-the-box on your Christmas present.  You’re either going to totally love it - or really not.” 

Did I feel intrigued?  Worried?  Honestly, I guess I didn’t take time to feel much of any way at all.  Two-weeks before Christmas, my mind is always busy enough with thoughts of everything I’m trying to give...

Most of all, though?  I just trust him.  If, after all these years, he doesn’t know me?  Nobody does.  I always appreciate anything he takes the time to choose for me – and it also doesn’t hurt that I happen to know he has really good taste!

Besides, he’d already been spending so much time on what I considered more than gift enough…

When we built a really big garage ten-years ago, we added a second story.  A big, empty shell we thought we’d finish “later.”  Back then, we envisioned a space for entertaining.  We not only had growing kids with friends, but we had also somehow formed a tradition of throwing a big party every summer.  (When I say “big,” I mean bigger than most weddings.  …Do you wonder “why?”  Yeah.  Me, too…)  So, a big indoor space, where we could invite other people year-round?  That seemed like the obvious goal.  Back then. 

But life kept happening.  We kept living it.  Little by little, that wide-open space filled up.  As it so often does, reality began to look quite different than our original vision had:  What we’d once pictured as a party room full of people ended up looking suspiciously more like an attic full of storage totes.    

Along the way, we also began living – and loving – a much quieter life than the one we lived a decade ago.  We still love hosting family and friends, but we’ve learned how much more we truly get to enjoy that when we do so in much smaller numbers.  Our home, exactly as it is, has proven - over and over - to handle that just fine.    

Alas, for all these years, that room - perched high above the river and affording the most beautiful view our home has to offer - has remained unfinished.  Unenjoyed. 

Then, last summer, seeking a quiet spot to write, I regularly found myself escaping to an old oak table stored up there.  Bare trusses overhead, the overflow of our life stacked in boxes behind me, that view in front of me:  It felt somehow… right. 

Eventually, I dreamed aloud to my husband: “What if we turned this into ‘my room’…?” 

I guess it felt right to him, too, because the week after Thanksgiving, he climbed the twenty-five stairs and tore right into making that dream come true.

My excitement growing with each passing week, I watched it take shape:  The bright, airy little studio that, until now, had existed only in my wishful dreams:  White shiplap walls and bead board ceilings.  Blonde knotty pine floors.  All cut, finished, and placed - board by board - by his hands.   Finally, just the place for a pair of antique French doors we’d found in the basement when this place became ours twenty-seven-years-ago.  All special.  But most special?  He was doing this – something quite outside of his wheelhouse:  For me. 

So, maybe you see why that would have been gift enough? 

But then Christmas morning came. 

As the paper from the last wrapped package drifted toward the floor, he jumped up and scurried to the garage.  A minute later, he returned with a large object draped by a blanket - and instructions: “This is part of your present.  Check your phone for the rest.”  Pulling back the blanket revealed a beautifully restored vintage rocking chair.  Immediately, I knew he’d chosen it for “my room.”    

Following instructions, I checked my phone.  He’d sent me not only a video documenting the shop owner’s restoration of that chair, but also a photo of a dainty, beautifully curved antique desk.  “I walked in and asked if she had any desks,” he explained, “and she said, (his countenance conveying her apologetic tone) ‘Just one, and it’s a lady’s writing desk…’” 

She couldn’t have known:  A lady’s writing desk is exactly what he had in mind.

I walked into that store on December 26 at his urging.  He’d bought the desk and arranged to have it refinished but wanted my in-person approval.  I did feel excited to see it for real.  But truly?  As much as this entire gesture meant to me?  I wouldn’t have changed whatever he’d chosen for anything in the world.  (Turns out, I honestly did love it!)

I returned home that day with a full heart.

It grew increasingly so as I worked on setting things back to order after Christmas… On the seat of the rocking chair, I propped a beautiful art print from my daughter:  So thoughtfully chosen to exactly suit me and the vision for “my room.”  I added “The Writer Says,” a book … a most special gift from my son… He’d bought it for me on one of his recent adventures, then flown across the country with it stashed in his backpack.  …That he’d thought of his mama at all, let alone that he’d thought of me as a writer…

Beautifully humbled, I knew I couldn’t possibly have received more meaningful gifts at this point in my life:  I’m still deeply touched by their thought and the things they chose for me, but the real gift lies in so much more than the things… It's the tangible reminders of their support and encouragement. 

I knew right then that I needed to write this down.  So that I never forget it. 

Then, naturally for me, I thought about sharing it with you…

It holds such meaning in this chapter of my life, and that’s what I do here:  Talk about Real Life. 

BUT:  I also run that through a filter.  I don’t want to just talk about me.  Plenty of things matter to me but don’t end up here.  Here, I only want to share things I, humbly, hope might also matter to you.  

How could this mean anything to anyone but me? 

Having held all this in my heart and my mind for a quarter of a year, it stopped me in my tracks when I heard Suzanne Stabile say, “The greatest form of hospitality is telling our stories.”

What if, when a story feels this meaningful to me, it’s really none of my business to know for sure who else needs to hear it, or to ever necessarily even know why? 

Once upon a time, we envisioned using our extra space to host others.  Had that plan materialized, I know it would have seen some good times with many who have shared our circle along the way.   

That never happened, but when I look at what has happened instead, I can’t help but wonder:  How much wider a circle will this plan allow me to invite in?  Through writing about and sharing the unseen, yet most meaningful parts of my life.  I once didn’t even know to imagine this.  But now?  I see it so clearly.      

How often might we find the best things just by looking a little differently at what we already have?   

As I sit in this peaceful room writing the story of how it came to be, I almost can’t believe it.  It is the studio of my dreams – only more beautiful than I ever could have imagined, thanks to the love that built it. 

Our story has changed so many times so far.  This part of it:  What we ended up doing with this room - and how? 

It’s an “ending” that sure feels like some kind of “beginning” to me…

One winter Saturday a couple of months into this project, my husband said, “You remember our deal, don’t you?” 

I didn’t.

“I said I’d build the room if you’ll write the book.  I’m building the room…” 

That’s right.  He had said that…

I will, God willing, write the book.  A little more each day, I recognize the stories that will form the chapters.  I’ll never forget that whatever that turns out to look like, it will have begun with this story.   

I still realize that at its outset, having said “thank you” instead of “I know” in response to the shopkeeper’s kind words about my husband really would have demonstrated better manners. 

Yet, I just can’t regret my natural response having taken the form it did.  It came from a place of genuine recognition of a blessing in my life.  One of many I receive though God’s very grace; not because I’m good, but because He is. 

I might have failed to thank her in that moment, but the encounter most certainly prompted me to remember to thank Him.   

Sometimes a reminder of our real gifts - as seen through someone else’s eyes - is exactly what we need. 

I can’t help but think… Maybe, by writing this, I am in some way thanking her after all.   

Her generous, affirming words helped attune me to the real, true, and lasting gifts in my life. 

Maybe that ends up reaching further than just “me” …

Maybe reading this story reminds you to recognize the gifts that already exist in your life, too. 

Maybe it helps us both remember that when we see goodness in someone else’s life, we should tell them.  And that when we have the chance to encourage someone – in ways big or small, we should do that.  What impact might it have - in ways we just can’t know?     

Maybe it gives you hope.  Maybe your story isn’t going the way you once pictured.  (So many parts of mine have not.)  But what if the detours save us from going places we were never really meant to go?  What if, instead, they lead us to places more beautiful than we even knew to imagine? 

I know now why sharing this story matters:  Because I had nothing to do with it…

God is so generous.  So abundantly good.  So trustworthy with our story.  Always. 

These things I’ve just told you will forever serve as such real reminders of that in my life; beautiful reasons to say…

“Thank You.”     

PS:  He got the cranberry bowl, too.  And it’s lovely.