Grandma Tales - 2

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Birthday gifts!!! That was the one thing  we were guaranteed every time we flew down for holidays. Since we would not be around during our birthday, my grandmother would handover our gifts when we met her during the holidays. Except for when her health began to deteriorate, I cannot remember a year when my grandmother had not given us a gift.

Most of the time she would hand it over to us. Other times she just gave it to my parents to give it to us on our respective birthdays. Because we constantly changed our interests, she did not know exactly what to give us. And so, she would give us a certain amount of money and tell us to spend it wisely. I never asked her where she got the money from but I guess she took it out from her pension.

Though she told us to spend it wisely, we as kids would just spend the money on trivial things that we thought were valuable at that time. She never changed her habit of giving us our annual birthday gifts. I guess she just wanted to see that joy in our faces, the joy of receiving a birthday gift. Despite her drawbacks, she always wanted others to be joyful. This message of spreading joy to others echoed back on the day of my first profession. The theme chosen by the majority was 'Called to be the witnesses of hope and joy.' While that was the theme of our first profession, I feel that it is our very mission in life - To spread joy and hope to all those we encounter.

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