Welcome to Grateful Heart Monday everyone, a day to reflect on an important piece of gratitude from life, which for today is for an early Christmas gift I received from a friend that was truly unexpected and extremely generous.
This story behind this piece of gratitude stems back about two weeks ago, when I completely screwed up my 12-year-old MacBook Pro laptop during a routine upgrade to some software on it. I have been milking this laptop for a very long time, as you can see by its age. Most computers don’t ever last this long and usually begin to have serious problems within 5 years or less. But for whatever the reason, this one has lasted me this long and its primary purpose has been my blog work while on any trip out of town. While it indeed is exceptionally slow anytime I’ve used it anymore, it’s managed to handle the bare minimum purpose I’ve needed it for. Thus, when I messed that installation up and somehow caused its operating system to get into a continual reboot mode, I figured my old laptop had finally had its last dance.
Without a functioning laptop and a trip looming on the horizon to my sister’s home, I got into a slight panic mode, because I really couldn’t justify buying new Mac laptop with my current financial situation, as they are overly expensive. And unfortunately, given all my work on my blog has been Mac-based, it really wasn’t possible to consider buying a cheap PC-based laptop without some serious complications arising. In light of that, I hoped my sister might have a spare one around for me to borrow during my upcoming visit there that I could use while at the hotel I was staying in. Unfortunately, she didn’t, so I opted to call a few friends locally to see if any of them might have a spare one I could borrow for my trip.
After checking around, I finally found a friend who actually had one in his possession he wasn’t regularly using anymore and was completely willing to let me borrow it for my trip. A few days later, when I met up with him to get it, I noticed in his hand was a neatly packaged Christmas gift instead. When he handed it to me and said Merry Christmas, I immediately could feel it was the laptop.
Without assuming anything though, I thanked him and said I’d return it to him after my trip, but he quickly responded in saying it was mine to keep and was an early Christmas present from him. I was utterly speechless and shocked, and a few tears came to my eyes, not only because of the notion that he’s relatively new to my life here in Toledo, but also because it was something completely unexpected. It was a true unconditionally loving gift.
I’m very grateful for this friend, whom I’ve decided to keep his name anonymous, given I wasn’t sure if he’d be ok with me sharing it in here. Nevertheless, I’m filled with an incredible amount of gratitude for his generous gift and thank my Higher Power as well, because ultimately, I know it was my Higher Power that moved my friend’s heart to offer this wonderful gift to me.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
