The Gift of Family Time

Throughout the 40 Days of Giving project, I realized that one of my biggest issues is with giving time. I am fairly self-sufficient, so don't need a lot of time devoted to me in order to feel needed, nor to feel a connection to others. A few hours here and there, and I'm honestly good.

I just don't need to go through the sorts of rituals that most people go through to establish their emotional ties to each other. Surely my friends know that they're my friends, and I don't need to invite them over to make that clear. If they wanted to see me, they could just as easily ask me over. The fact that they don't doesn't mean that I don't think they like me. I assume they do, unless something happens which indicates to me that they have stopped liking me.

Because of this willingness to have my relationships by mutual understanding rather than through actual interactions with people, I sometimes joke that I have Asperger syndrome.

Having a family, of course, doesn't quite allow for that. For reasons that I don't quite fathom, Amber and the kids like having my direct attention for more than just an hour or two a day. It's really quite baffling, since I'm not that interesting.

But there's where the conflict arises, because I'm something of a workaholic. I always have a bunch of projects going on (and, in fact, at present am approaching something of a train wreck as many deadlines approach all at once), and while I'm happy to schedule time for family events and activities, just planning generic family time that has no real point has never made much sense to me.

However, with schedules and family life growing more hectic - my elder son in kindergarten, my freelance work, my day job, Amber's school, Amber's internship, Amber's new job with Lia Sophia, a 10-month old baby who's closely approaching the walking stage, and so on - it's becoming more crucial to set time aside.

So we've begun setting Monday evenings as Family/Date Night. We haven't quite worked out what this entails, other than that we are not allowed to schedule any non-family event for Monday night. So far, it's been nice.

We also set this weekend aside in a similar fashion. On Friday, when I finished work, I came into the back yard and set up two tents. We camped out the last three nights, and have spent most of the weekend outdoors. We considered going out to a nearby campground but, frankly, money is kind of tight these days.

It's been a great weekend, filled with a continuous campfire, sleeping bags, s'mores, roasted hot dogs, bugs, and other outdoor adventures.

And, in the midst of all of this, I've still gotten some things accomplished. I wrote a blog post for About.com on multiple universes and one for Black Gate on a possible The Sandman television series. I've cleared over a hundred pages of Cherie Priest's Boneshaker (quite good so far, though not as action-packed as I was expecting from a steampunk zombie tale). I'm also making my way through the pile of role-playing games that I have to review for the upcoming issue of Black Gate. And now this blog post.

In short, I've actually gotten about as much done during a camp out weekend as I normally get by hectically holing myself up in the basement for a couple of hours and getting as much done as I can. But instead of being a frantic rush of activity, it's been nice and leisurely, interspersed with time spent around the campfire with Elijah, roasting marshmallows. Even Amber commented that watching me work yesterday was a lot different from how I normally seem to work, and it looked (and felt) more relaxed, while I got just as much accomplished.

Back in February, I reviewed The Generosity Factor, which listed the Gift of Time as one of the many ways to give. This strikes me as one way of doing that - focusing on the here and now, and detaching a bit to give some time to those you care most about.

Or, to put it in a more intellectual way, consider this interview with William Powers, author of Hamlet's Blackberry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age. In it, he suggests (as many others have done over the years) that our modern society is not built to adequately embrace the connections among people that we desperately need for happiness. Like Thoreau, he believes in building a bit of space for contemplation. His family practices disconnected weekends - Internet Sabbaths - which is something of a sacrifice in this connected age.

I'm not sure if I've quite reached the point of embracing weekend-long Internet Sabbaths, but it seems to me that putting tents in the backyard every once in a while is a good place to start. It's a gift not just to your family, but to yourself.

What other ways have you found to really set some good quality time aside, especially when life is at its most hectic? How do you make sure that you can give the gift of family time?

Presbyterians Affirm the Charter of Compassion

It was late in the evening on November 12, 2009, a little more than 24 hours after my son had entered the world. Mother and child both lay sleeping, but I was wide awake. I opened my laptop, checking the mail that had accumulated in the last couple of chaotic days, and find an e-mail from TED announcing the formation of the Charter for Compassion, as part of the fulfillment of Karen Armstrong's TED wish.

This e-mail (or, more specifically, the Charter of Compassion that it introduced me to) started the cogs in my brain working, and ultimately led me to come up with the idea behind the 40 Days of Giving project. I think it's a great idea, and firmly embrace its tenets. The day after my son was born, I affirmed the Charter for Compassion ... and to date, over 50,000 people have joined me, including the Dalai Lama, Desmund Tutu, Paul Simon, Queen Noor of Jordan, Meg Ryan, and many other people (some famous, most not).

And now, apparently, so does the entire Presbyterian Church (USA), who earlier this month affirmed the Charter of Compassion. (It's mentioned in a bullet list at the end of the article, but there's more detail here.) According to the press release from the Charter:

The PC(USA) will send the Charter to every congregation, where it will be used to help embody compassion in education, worship, and community events. Congregations are already using the Charter as a focus for adult education classes and plan to invite a diverse array of religious leaders to share with the PC(USA)’s congregations how compassion is lived in their own traditions.

So, this Sunday morning, I have to ask ... Why hasn't every religious denomination affirmed the Charter for Compassion? Why haven't you?

P.S. - On a related note, Karen Armstrong appears to have a new "vook" (a video book) available entitled A Compassionate Life in 12 Steps. It looks interesting, and costs a mere $4.99. I'm going to wait until I finally receive my free iPad, and then check it out ... and I'll let you all know what I think of it.

The Face of Empathy

If you've ever known an older couple who just look like they fit together, you aren't just imagining it. Our bodies are wired to recognize and mirror the emotions of others, including the physical way those emotions manifest, and this results in these similarities, according to biologist Frans de Waal in his book The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society:

Mood transfer via facial expressions and body language is so powerful that people doing it on a daily basis literally start to look alike. This has been tested with portraits of longtime couples: One set of pictures was taken on their wedding day and another set twenty-five years later. Presented with separate portraits of these men and women, human subjects were asked to match them on similarity. For the set taken at an older age, they had no trouble deciding who was married to whom. But for the pictures taken at a younger age, subjects flunked the task. Married couples resemble each other, therefore, not because they pick partners who look like them, but because their features converge over the years. The similarity was strongest for couples who reported the greatest happiness. Daily sharing of emotions apparently leads one partner to "internalize" the other, and vice versa, to the point that anyone can see how much they belong together.

While I certainly don't want my wife to begin "converging" toward my own ugly mug, I do think there's something beautiful and profound about this scientific evidence. It shows that the connections between us reach every level, down into our very flesh.

Despite being profoundly (and thankfully) emotional and mental, love is also, if you'll pardon the phrase, skin deep.

Day 35: Public Television Give

Today our give was to our local PBS station, WFYI. We got a solicitation in the mail. It turns out that they lost about 50% of their state funding this year, amounting to a shortfall of nearly $250,000 ... on top of an already tough year economically. We can never really give too much to them because, since we cut out our cable television, it's pretty much the only television that we allow Elijah to watch. He's very engaged with their programming, and remembers a lot. For example, one day he pretended to be a meteorologist (and pronounced the word almost-correctly) because he'd seen it on Sid the Science Kid.

For reasons beyond this, PBS has a special place in my heart this year, because they've actually helped with one of the big changes which has startled me during this whole process. As I've described earlier, my mother is losing a ton of weight (a figurative ton, that is)... and I attribute it largely to a PBS donation last fall.

PBS Donation Gives Back
Last year, when I donated, it was during their regular annual drive and we qualified for some gifts in exchange for the donation. I really wanted the National Parks: America's Best Idea series ... 12 hours of gorgeous footage of our national parks, along with their history. But Amber had other ideas. (It's okay, I eventually recorded the National Parks series on our DVR and got to watch it. Absolutely gorgeous!)

Amber decided that we should get a set of Wayne Dyer materials, as a Christmas gift for her mother. Her mother, she said, really liked him and it would be a nice gift. So we checked off the box to get the Wayne Dyer book Excuses Begone!: How to Change Lifelong, Self-Defeating Thinking Habits, along with the related CD and DVD of his PBS special on the topic.

Now, honestly, I'd never heard of this guy, but it was clear he was some sort of self-improvement guru, and over the last couple of years I've grown to appreciate that these guys can be helpful, so I wasn't opposed to getting it ... but neither was I particularly enthusiastic about it.

I grew even less enthusiastic as it neared Christmas and the stuff wasn't showing up. We got two postcards stating that WFYI was back-ordered on their reward materials, and we'd get it when it arrived in stock. So as we neared Christmas, this gift just wasn't ready, so we went ahead and got Amber's mother some other set of gifts, thinking that the Wayne Dyer stuff could be set aside for her birthday.

The package arrived a couple of weeks after Christmas, when I was in the process of preparing for the 40 Days of Giving project. I sat them out on the table, and quickly found that the CDs had been opened up and placed in the car, where Amber was listening to them as she drove around town. "Mom won't mind," she told me.

I began to listen, and was fairly impressed. Though Dyer is a spiritual guru, this particular set doesn't require a lot of spiritual commitment - it's just common sense. Basically, he urges people to look at what excuses they use and then consider whether they are really certain that excuse is true. He cites some new research in epigenetics (very cool stuff), which indicates that even our genetic code does very little to lock down the behavior of our biology. Even the most solid excuse - "It's in my genes" - seems to no longer be valid.

Given that these excuses are never 100% certain, you then have a choice of whether or not to believe them. Some of these very excuses came up when I was in the planning phases of this project, as I began to look at the logistics of actually carrying it out.

"It'll be too hard." Well, maybe or maybe not. Instead of assuming it will be, why not assume that it won't be, and run with that?

"I can't afford it." Again - maybe or maybe not. Why not think "There's a way I can afford this" and then begin looking for it.

As I said, none of this is particularly spiritual ... although the implications of Dyer's epigenetics talk is that you can positively think your body itself into a better situation, potentially curing cancer or losing weight with some positive thinking.

And that's where my mother comes into the story.

One day, I'm listening to the disks while I drive my mother to the foot doctor. I had to pressure her to go, despite the fact that she had a gaping, oozing wound on her foot. She'd gotten a large blister on her foot, rubbed them together in her sleep one night, and caused it to split open. Her feet were regularly swollen and red, and I was concerned about circulation problems. She was also diabetic. She needed her foot looked at, so I was dragging her to the foot doctor.

During the drive, she listened to the CD, just as it was talking about a study where the placebo effect was shown to work even in place of surgery. A group of people with arthritis in their knees were split into three groups. Two groups received surgery to alleviate the problem, but the third group received only incisions, but no actual surgery. Then all three groups, thinking they'd had the surgery, went through physical therapy. The group that thought they had surgery, but didn't, recovered at exactly the same rate as the ones who had actually had the knee surgery! The pain was relieved, the movement increased, at exactly the same rate. The surgery itself, and the skill of the surgeon, appeared to have no actual impact on the patients' outcomes.

Upon questioning, I told my mother that this was some guy from PBS, Wayne Dyer. Then I took her to the foot doctor.

Amber and I continue listening to the Excuses Begone! disk, and are fairly impressed. Amber has already decided that her mother wouldn't really like it, because he's kind of "New Age-y" for her. For example, at one point Dyer says, "You are god," as a means of demonstrating how much power you have to influence your own life. Well, for a fundamentalist Christian, that just doesn't fly, so we decided to keep the Wayne Dyer stuff ... and I became quite a fan.

At one point I said to Amber, "My mother should really listen to this."

Well, it turned out she didn't have to. The Wayne Dyer Excuses Begone! special was on PBS, and Mom happened to catch it while flipping through channels. Realizing that it was the show I'd mentioned, she watched it.

What happened next was nothing short of astounding.

Since String Theory for Dummies had come out, I'd occasionally made reference to the fact that I looked forward to the day when I could write full time. Each and every single time this topic came up, my mother immediately pointed out that I'd be foolish to give up a job with such good benefits and pay. (I was making nearly as much after 5 years with the company as she'd made teaching school for 25 years! This isn't a sign of my immense wealth ... it's a sign of how badly teachers are paid.)

Then, just a few days into the 40 Days of Giving project, I went over to her house. She said, "I saw that Wayne Dyer show, and I wanted to tell you something." She looked me in the eye. "If you ever decide that you want to quit your job to write full time, you won't hear a word of complaint from me."

I was absolutely stunned at this total reversal. For my entire life, Mom had emphasized the importance of having a secure job with benefits. This was the woman who had told me, as a young child, that if I wanted to be a writer, I'd better have a job that could pay the bills.

Something about that PBS self-help show had clicked the tumblers into place for her. And that was just the beginning. I came by her house a week later and noticed some new exercise and diet materials. Within a few days, the change was noticeable: Mom was losing weight.

My mother had, for well over a decade, weighed well over 300 pounds. At her heaviest, she reached 370 pounds. She'd moved up to be near us in the fall and had put some weight on since then. Now it was coming off ... and coming off quickly. When she went to the doctor about two weeks into the 40 Days of Giving project ... and she was twenty pounds lighter than when she'd moved. We estimate that, in just two weeks on her diet, she'd lost nearly 30 pounds.

And she has, since then, continued to lose weight ... although it has, thankfully, leveled off. (We don't want the poor woman to waste away.)

Just today, in fact, she reclaimed some property from me because of how much she'd lost. When we'd gone to Florida this summer, she'd bought me a "Grumpy Gator" t-shirt. She'd wanted one, but the largest size they had was XL, which she hadn't fit into. She bought it for me with the understanding that when she lost the weight to fit into it, she could have it back. Neither of us honestly expected that I'd have to fork it over.

I've never been happier to give up anything in my life.

And this all started with a show on PBS that convinced her she didn't have to just accept the excuses she'd been using for so many years ... so giving some money to them is, I figure, well worth it.

Day 34: White River Watchers

Today's give is to a local organization which has done some great work helping to beautify the White River. Their name, appropriately enough, is the White River Watchers of Madison County. I was able to volunteer with their 2009 White River Fall clean-up, which had me walking up and down the White River dragging trash out of it. Just the group I was with - consisting of about a dozen people on foot who covered less than a mile of the river - found, among other bits of debris, four or five tires, a giant tractor tire, a set of bed springs, and one large, empty oil barrel that had rusted through. (Other groups - two entire school buses full, as I recall - loaded up in canoes and traveled the river that way to find and clear other trash.)

Amber didn't accompany me, because at the time she was very pregnant. But we did, later that day, take Elijah for a walk down by one of the river's tributaries and he was able to practice casting his fishing pole (with a rubber fish weight tied onto the end of it). We saw a lot of trash in that area, and talked to him about how important it was to not litter, especially in the river. We explained to him that even though someone else had left the trash there, it was our job to help clean it up, because if it was left there it would make the Earth and the fish sick.

While we do our part with our son, the White River Watchers (founded in 1997) performs outreach with local schools, as well as performing chemical tests on the White River water supply, to supplement their clean-up activities. They've received numerous awards and recognition for their work, including the 2004 Governor's Award for Excellence in Community Service and Volunteerism for the Environment. Their mission, "to protect the White River ecosystem for the present and future use of all by means of community involvement and education" is one that Amber and I can both get behind 100%.

(For those wondering about the Day 33 give - it was Sunday, so we gave a tithe to church and brought a pie, and spent the rest of the day spending time together as a family.)

Parental Giving

On the PBS show Faces of America, they are exploring the family histories of a number of amazing Americans. One history being explored is of the famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma. They were able to track down a genealogy, including biographies and even naming conventions for generations, that had been lost and rediscovered in China. The oldest record they could find was for the ancestor Ma Lin-Guan, born 1435. The following is from the episode "Making America" where they explore this record:

(Reading from the genealogy record about Ma Lin-Guan) Living an upright life and without holding an official post, he accumulate virtue and cultivated goodness, and thus he laid the foundations for the family for 10,000 generations to come. To pass on good fortune to the descendants, isn't that what it's all about. Isn't it?

(Yo-Yo Ma's commentary) That's what I'm trying to do is live an upright life without holding an official post. Actually, I'm just trying to stay upright (laughter).... That's the best we can do as parents. It's not passing wealth, but passing, you know, certain values. In this case, virtue ... and good fortune.

Work and Family Balance

On March 2, as I was getting ready to head into the office, my four-year-old son walked up to me, and asked me not to go. We play this out every once in a while, so I gave my standard response, "Well, I have to go to work, so they'll give us money and we'll be able to buy food."

This time, he was having none of it. "Just tell them you don't need to work. We have enough money."

I sat down, smiled at him, hugged him, and then said, "You know, even if we didn't have any money, we'd still be pretty happy, right?" He nodded. "You know why?" He nodded. "Yeah, cause we've got family," he said. "Yeah," I said.

Then I went off to work for the day.

That's what we have to do to live a reasonable lifestyle today. I am very fortunate, because my job allows me to work from home much of the time, but I have so many irons in the fire that it still means that the time I'm able to devote to my family is one of the major sources of tension between Amber and I. Writing a book takes a lot of time, and when you have a full-time job in addition to that, well ... that's a lot of time you're devoting to goals outside of the family.

I think that I balance it fairly well, but sometimes - like when my son says things like the above - I do wonder if I'm successful. It's important to always remember that giving begins at home ... which is why this afternoon I will be conducting the Mentos geyser experiment, as well as maybe the egg in the bottle experiment ... no matter how much time it takes.

Day 23: Feeding a True Giver - Joy's Story

Ever since hearing about it last fall, Amber and I have been extremely enthusiastic about the prospect of buying into a local community supported agriculture (CSA) program, which is being run through our local Center for Mental Health. In a CSA, you buy shares in the farm and pick up your portion weekly throughout the summer. In the case of this particular CSA, you have the option for signing up for a brief spring session (April and May, which includes mostly winter greens) or a full summer session (June through October). The prices come out extremely reasonable, given the amount (and diversity) of organic food which you get. We opted for a single share, though I think that, if it goes well, we may go for a double share next year. Our goal is to transition our eating more to vegetables anyway, so it seems like a reasonable way to get our supply.

Our local CSA is the Aspire Indiana Farm. You can find a CSA, farmer's market, or other locally-grown option near you through the Local Harvest website.

What does this have to do with giving? Well, early on in the project we decided that we'd like to buy shares for someone into this program, preferably someone with a large family. Almost as soon as we decided that, an opportunity presented itself.

Joy's Story
One of Amber's classmates - let's call her Joy - recently became the guardian of four children. In addition, she has four children of her own. So, according to the math, she is living in a household with 8 kids, and they range from ages 4 to 17. Plus a 41-year-old husband. Joy is 30 and a cancer survivor.

The story of how Joy came to be guardian of these children is both tragic and inspiring. The children's father passed away last June, leaving them in the care of their mother. She had some issues, including drug-related ones, and ended up being arrested. The four children were placed in state custody. They were fortunately able to be placed the same foster home.

Unfortunately, the foster home they were placed in was headed by a woman of incredibly poor judgement. She was dating a convicted sexual predator, knew it, and allowed him to spend several nights over at the house. Three nights a week, in fact, so that he would spend just enough nights at his own place that he wouldn't have to tell his case worker that he was living in the same house as a bunch of kids.

The kids, of course, were not pleased about this, but they felt like they couldn't report the foster parent, because then they'd be moved to a new foster home, and there was absolutely no guarantee that they'd be able to stay together.

Enter Joy who (somehow - that part of the story I haven't gotten yet) learned about the situation and decided that it was unacceptable. She was an at-risk youth, raised by an alcoholic mother, and just couldn't leave the kids in that sort of a situation. "I just felt like I could show them a different path," she said.

Despite the challenges, Joy finds the experience rewarding and is glad she took on the challenge. When asked what the biggest reward is, she replied that it was the ability to help teach them things that, in their former life, they'd never been exposed to. "Every time they learn something new, because they don't see the world like we do."

Joy wanted the opportunity to show these kids a different path, and now they're in a household where the mother is going to college instead of jail. I don't know if it'll be enough, but I do know that it's a noble effort. Way to go, Joy!

(Note: The above is based on a brief phone discussion/interview with Joy. I am hoping to get a more lengthy opportunity to talk to her in the future, so the account of this story in the book should be much more detailed.)

A Gift of Fresh Food
One of the biggest challenges for Joy has been supplying the family with fresh fruits and vegetables. When the family consisted of 6 people, she made a priority to budget for some fresh foods, but jumping up to 10 means that they're pretty much forced to go with what's on sale. Fresh fruits and vegetables, sadly, are usually much more expensive than boxes of macaroni and cheese.

When Amber happened to overhear Joy discussing this, it was a no-brainer. We got in touch with Joy and offered to pay for her family's double-share in the Aspire Indiana Farm over the summer session. It's a small repayment for such an act of generosity, but I'm sure that the universe will reward her even more in the future.

The Gift of Touch

Early on in the experiment I had my mom over for the afternoon. We spent the day as usual, talking about nonsense, watching Elijah play, and cooing over the baby. There was nothing particularly different about the day until the end of it.

That evening I was making baked potato soup and Mom was helping me with this and that. One of the great things about my relationship with my mom is that we are able to share time around the house. It doesn't matter whether it is mine or hers, we can just be "at home" wherever we are when we are together. I have to say it is particularly nice when she comes to my house though, as she quite often helps me with the kids which gives me some free time to catch up on much-overdue chores. In return for her help, I usually make a meal that she can share with our family that evening. It is an unspoken trade, one that I think we both benefit from. (For me both Quality Time and Acts of Service, as I'll get to later.)

Anyway, to get to the point of the story, that night while I was cooking dinner the urge hit me to give mom a hug and tell her that I love her. It went something like this: "You know that I love you right? *hug* I know that I don't always show you in the ways that you like, but I do." I went on to admit that at times I can be somewhat of a pain in the ass and can be abrasive, but truly stressed to mom how much I love her.

You see, the thing is that I tell my mom that I love her all the time. Everyday I call her, sometimes twice a day, and always end each call with a meaningful, "I love you." But I don't touch her. Not often, at least. I don't really touch anyone besides my husband and sons.

Touching people doesn't do much for me. There isn't a warm fuzzy feeling that comes over me when I hug people. It's more of a nauseated kind of feeling. I honestly don't know why I don't like it. I just don't. When I go in for the hug I feel awkward, when I am hugging I feel anxious and and a bit creeped out by it, and when it is over I feel much better (and not in an "ah that was wonderful" kind of way but a "thank god that's over with" kind of way).

But for some unknown reason, on that particular day, I chose to hug Mom.

In the midst of cooking, I had left the kitchen to talk to Andrew. When I came back, my mom wasn't there. She was in the restroom and had been in there a while.

"Mom?" I ask. "What are you doing?"

She took a few minutes and then came out all red-eyed. I'm thinking, "Oh shit! What did I do now?" When I ask her what is wrong I get some dismissive remark, but I won't let her alone until I get the truth. She was crying in the bathroom for Pete's sake. Then she said, "Thats the first time in years that I have felt like you love me."

I was blown away. "What do you mean the first time in years? I tell you all the time!"

And she replied, "But you never show me. You never hug me."

I hugged her again, but felt awkward this time, because touch kind of bugs me but I do love her and wanted her to know it. "Of course I love you. Geeze mom!"

And back to cooking we went.

Then the next day it hit me, "AH HA! That's it, she needs touch to feel loved."

I know that this was obvious from the night before, but the night before all I could see was that she didn't think I loved her and I tell her all the time. But by the next day I had time to process things and I got to thinking about the book The Five Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman. In it he talks about the idea that everyone has a primary love language (and usually a secondary as well) and that they are often different from our parents, children, and spouses.

That was it! In this viewpoint, she has a different love language than I do. Dr. Chapman talks about the importance of recognizing these variants and trying to show the people in our lives the love that they recognize best.

The five love languages are as follows:

1. Words of affirmation - Unsolicited compliments can build these folks up, whereas insults can shatter them emotionally.
2. Quality Time - Full undivided attention with the TV off and chores aside is what some people need.
3. Receiving Gifts - Not to be mistaken for materialism, these people flourish when they are shown love through well thought out gifts. It doesn't matter if it is a handmade card or a much longed for gift, it is all about the thoughtfulness behind the act of giving.
4. Acts of Service - Helping with chores and taking something off of their "plate" can be received as an act of love to this person. Laziness and broken commitments can be heartbreaking for them.
5. Physical Touch - Holding hands, caressing, and pats on the back are all ways that this person gives and receives love and affection.

Note: This ties in with some other sources Andrew's been reading, such as The Generosity Factor, which indicates that two ways to give are of our Time (which relates to Quality Time and Acts of Service) and Touch (Physical Touch, obviously).

No wonder this act of affection was so important to my mom, her primary love language is Physical Touch and I haven't shown it unless I have been forced to. Because I am someone who needs Quality Time and Acts of Service, it hasn't occurred to me to touch her more often.

And for mom helping me out with chores or spending time together hanging out at my house are both things that she doesn't as willingly dish out either. We have both been missing the mark when it comes to meeting each other's emotional needs. And, in many ways, I think that we have both left each other feeling unloved.

I called her that next day to tell her what I realized and apologized again, trying to stress to her that I do love her and that I will try and show her more physical affection. I hope that she too will realize that when I ask her to hang out, or if I offer to do the dishes or bring up her trash cans, that those are my ways of telling her how much I care as well.

Needless to say, that evening taught me that while giving money to those in need is critical to improving the state of the world around us and the lives of those in it, it is also critically important that we meet the emotional needs of those we come in contact with as well. And for my mom the best gift that I could have given her was neither a meal, nor my time, nor a $100 bill, but a simple hug.