Greetings!
That should be three years ago, I can clearly remember how it happened....
For a long period of time now, I have been traveling home for the festive season to celebrate just the New Year, I mean after the Christmas celebration has ended and looking forward to the New Year. This is due to my work schedule, which does not allow me to travel during the Christmas period.
In November of that year, I had bought a leather shoe which, after the purchase, I automatically didn’t find interesting anymore.
So, I made up my mind to take it home and gift it to someone who would value it. However, the issue was deciding who to give it to. My dad isn’t the shoe type; he prefers palm footwear. My younger male siblings, who wear the same shoe size as me, do not fancy leather shoes because, according to them, it’s only "churchy" people that wear leather shoes. I didn’t blame them because that was actually the trend of the day. Young guys were and are still much more comfortable in sneakers than leather shoes.
After some hours of pondering, I finally figured out someone—a brother in our church at home whom I was very sure liked leather shoes. I knew he would appreciate it, use it, and not dump it the way my siblings would have done if I had given it to them.
When I finally traveled home the Wednesday between Christmas and New Year, it was a midweek evening service (church time). I took the shoe along, hoping that the guy would attend, and just as planned, he was in church. After the service, I quickly located him. Thank God the weather was already dark, so not many people saw us. I handed him the black nylon bag containing the shoe. He quickly opened it, brought out the shoe, and pointed his phone's flashlight at it. He couldn’t contain his joy.
For me, I am very awkward when someone starts doing those appreciative acts. I usually feel like I’m taking some sort of glory, so immediately after he saw what was inside, I slipped away. I saw him running towards me to thank me, but I begged him to stop.
I won’t lie—I felt fulfilled. I felt like God had recorded my name in the book of those who would make heaven. I had given someone a gift, but the manner in which I came about this and how everything went just made it special for me. I thanked God that I thought it through and didn’t settle on giving it to my family, as they wouldn’t have used it. The idea to gift it to that person was just perfect, and everything went excellently well.
The funniest thing, which happened to be inconvenient for me, occurred afterward. The next day, this guy came to our house to thank me again. That really tried to sour the whole situation because, come on, it was just too much. The shoe, although new and never worn before, was something I had already made up my mind to give out. I never imagined that such a simple gift could mean so much to the receiver.
Thanks for reading!
This is my entry to Hivenaija prompt of the week
Photos are mine