It's the Small Things | The Gifts We Carry

The young girl at the reception gave me a double thumbs up as I handed in my form. Her smile shone through her bespectacled eyes. She wore a mask, but her cheer was unmistakable.

Women and men, girls and boys, young and young at heart waited for their number to beep on the screen. They pottered, waddled or shuffled to the consulting rooms depending on their mood and health. Not all wore masks, but all stayed with their eyes glued to their mobile phones, glancing up only to check if their number had been displayed with the ding dong. If someone coughed, they looked apologetic. If someone was handed a sample bottle, they looked embarrassed.

I was in for routine blood work and an X-Ray.

Almost as soon as I had sat down, my number was called. X-ray was to be in room number seven. A brisk, hijab wearing lady gave me a navy-blue disposable gown to wear with instructions on what to not wear. She gestured to the changing room and said she’d be waiting.

I loved the gown. I hated the plastic it came in. I loved that the gown was roomy, dark and closed front and back. It hung on me like a kaftan at a beach holiday. I tied my hair in a top knot and thought of my childhood math teacher.

The lady was waiting with a declaration form in the imaging room “Are you pregnant?” she asked. The question seemed comical. At home one child, no longer a child, had just returned from university for holidays and had, once again, failed to wake up after the 17th alarm. The other, now a teenager, had just finished her online student-led parent-teacher conference and was moaning about her long list of self-imposed, non-negotiable daily tasks.

“No chance, I laughed. “I have two grown-up kids.”

She laughed louder than I did. “That doesn’t matter. Gifts can surprise you.”

She sobered me up a bit.

“You sure?” she asked again still smiling as she handed the declaration to sign.

I stood straight, shoulders forward, breathing in and out just as instructed. A white wall faced me. In that blankness, I saw all the colours my gifts had brought me.

Five ding-dongs later I was in room number six.

My relationship with needles hasn’t improved in all these years. I sat deep-breathing as preparation.

The nurse smiled. Another bright face behind a mask.

“Needles aren’t fun,” I said.

“Life is like that. You need needles even if you don’t like them.” Another cool mum she is, I thought.

She asked my age, glanced at the label, and said, “You don’t look it.” Then she told me hers.

She was 11 years older than me. “You don’t look yours either,” I replied.

Pleased, she pulled down her mask. “Even now?”

“Yup, even now!”

She tied the tourniquet and began chatting while readying the syringe. “I do my own facials with flaxseed and aloe vera. Use it for my hair too.”

I winced as the needle went in. She continued unfazed.

“I have three daughters – 29, 26 and 23. The first one’s been working in a clinic for four years, second one started at a cancer clinic three days ago and the youngest conducted the first blood test just yesterday.”

I nodded, impressed, my elbow still tight from the tourniquet.

“I told my daughters this job will never go. AI won’t replace hands like ours. They can continue working. Be independent.”

She pulled out the needle. It looked alarmingly like a bubble tea straw. I winced.

She pressed a cotton swab and placed the plaster. Then she reached for her phone and showed me a photo of herself and her eldest.

“She is a gift,” she said with pride. “We all use flaxseed and aloe vera.”

That night I dreamt of my mother. It had been a long time.

It was a strange dream. We were in my bedroom, just as it is today. I was my age; she was hers. The room was cool and dim except for the faint night light. We lay side by side, like we used to. Her arm stretched out, my head resting on it, that perfect ergonomic pillow with a million memories.

Two happy, furry mice with purple feet jumped in the corner of the room. A petrified me shrieked, “That second one looks as if he’s jumping on a trampoline! What if he jumps high enough and lands on the bed?”

“If he tries hard enough and long enough, he will,” Amma said. “Resilience is a gift you give yourself.”

What was it about mums and gifts that day?

Memories are a gift. May your baskets always brim with gifts.

Sunanda Verma is a cross-cultural storyteller exploring diversity and connection. More at www.sunanda.net.

We’ve grown up hearing that “it’s the small things” that matter. That’s true, of course, but it’s also not – there are Big Things that we know matter, and that we shouldn’t take our eyes, minds or hearts off of. As journalists, we spend most of our time looking at those Big Things, trying to understand them, break them down, and bring them to you.

And now we’re looking to you to also think about the small things – the joy that comes from a strangers’ kindness, incidents that leave you feeling warm, an unexpected conversation that made you happy, finding spaces of solidarity. Write to us about your small things at thewiresmallthings@gmail.com in 800 words or less, and we will publish selected submissions. We look forward to reading about your experiences, because even small things can bring big joys.

Read the series here.

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