Gift

A little pre-Christmas, stuck-at-the-airport ramblin' for your post-Christmas enjoyment.



I’m seriously considering whether the end of my existence is God’s amusement.

I am ending my first four month stint in Rome exactly as I began it – sleepy, wheezing, and drugged. It probably has something to do with the sporadic heat and hot water in my apartment, combined with a wild-goose chase lugging a laptop to Rome’s four ends, combined with three days of last-minute targeted Christmas shopping that involved carrying heavy bags full o’ stuff and booze. Oh, you lucky other people. My shopping covered people I haven’t even met yet. As a result, all I want in my stocking these days is a bottle of Flex-All, a magic inhaler and a masseuse named Mollie.

Nevertheless, in the midst of suffering sore feet and sorer muscles, I encountered a unique person yesterday; a young boy who made me step back and think about the grand “meaning of it all” and all that good stuff.

The kid appeared on Tram eight on the way from Largo Argentina to Stazione Trastevere. With three bags of stuff, I was keeping my eyes busy scoping for thieves. A couple of stops down the line, to no surprise, a gypsy stepped onto the tram a couple of cars down and started pealing out chipper Christmas accordion music.

Sigh. I fluctuate in what I think about gypsies.

I feel compassion for them and their children. I do. But their cultural heritage of begging rubs my American sensibilities the wrong way. It’s something I struggle with every time I enter a church with the monotone moaning voice following me on the way in, “Prego, Signora, per favore, per Dio, per Dio . . .” Do you give them money? Do you hold out because you think they should get a real job, because you’re mad that they drug their babies to sleep so they’ll look more pathetic and they teach their children to lie and steal? What do you do? Where’s the line?

All of this was re-playing through my head when a gypsy kid stepped on at the next stop. The accordion music had paused for a minute, so I had a chance to think and size him up. Judging from the size of my oldest nephew, I put him at 11 years old. He was skinny and his motions gave you the impression that his limbs were moving by uncoordinated accident. He wasn’t disabled; just incredibly klutzy. Something about his expression was surprisingly alive, though; incredibly human. Many beggers have a dead heaviness to them, an assumed persona designed to guilt-trip you; this kid was lively and his presence was arresting: at least for the first thirty seconds. Then he changed. Down came the back, eyes, and smile; out came the hand, and he went from person to person asking for money. Moving very awkwardly. No luck for him today.

With a loud flourish, the accordion music started up again in the adjoining car. And then gypsy kid started and began to – well, whine. To himself. He came alive again. He sat down (perhaps fell akimbo into a seat is a better way to describe it) and began gesticulating (again, to himself) and started whining in rapid falsetto something in Italian, the gist of what I could gather was: You’re kidding me, somebody else is already begging in this train and it’s freaking Christmas and no one will give me anything now. And it’s Christmas.

Why, after all of my philosophizing about self-sufficiency, this moved my heart, is a mystery to me.

But I couldn’t help feeling bad for the kid. He’s young. He’s begging for money. It is Christmas, and I have three bags of stuff for people who don’t need anything. I fished out a eurocoin and motioned him over. (Ok, so I still kept a good eye on my stuff).

Wow, I made the kid’s day.

He got downright giddy. “Thank you thank you thank you – and for you, I will give you a kiss” – which he did, sort of in my ear. Something about my gift gave him new hope. He went from person to person in the car again, begging with a huge smile on his face. The kid was practically skipping. He started joking with the passengers. He fished something out of his own pocket and started talking to one of the older women about it at the end of the tram. A little while later, he came back and sat in the seat in front of me. He asked me my name and told me his. Told me he was 15 years old when I asked. Asked me where I was from. Then he handed me an American quarter. In Italian he said, “I give this to you, because you gave something to me. It’s free.”

It was a free act of kindness from a kid who has nothing, a kid who probably had to steal and beg to get everything he owns.

I'll always be grateful for the moment of clarity that boy gave to me that day. What that boy gave meant something, to him and to me. We give so much in this world without thinking; five bucks (if we remember) to the Church on Sunday, nickels into the tip jar at Starbucks, obligatory presents for people at Christmas and at bridal showers. How often do we have a chance to put a piece of ourselves into what we give, and receive something meaningful in return?

The kid had it where it's at.