The Gift Box.(Kevin Hughes) Author's Note:
This is the second of five stories I shall write before Christmas.
I hope you like it.

*****

It had been a tradition in my family for more than 150 years. On your 18th Christmas you only got one present. One. A box about six inches on a side, tied with a plain piece of twine was all you got. It always had a small tag, like those you sometimes see in hardware shops, or machine shops, or airplane repair shops; you know the kind- red string with a red grommet, and a label to write three lines on.

On that tag would be your name, Merry Christmas, and that’s all.

It didn’t matter if you were a boy, or a girl either. At eighteen you got that small box for Christmas. And only that small box. The rules were simple: after everyone else got their presents, you got your small box.

Then you were told to go out to the garage and open it.

Then you were told not to come in the house for an hour.

Then you were told not to tell anyone- ever- what was in it.

No one ever did.

*****

All you were ever told about the box your entire childhood was this:

“You will get your box when you are eighteen years old. In it is a gift from your great great great grandfather. It is a very special gift and has stayed in our family for a century and a half.“

“But what is it?”

Whatever adult you were talking with - and they had to be at least eighteen for you to even ask about it- because nobody younger was ever given a box- all said the same thing:

“I can’t tell you. Except to say it will change your life.”

It always did.

*****

Only one person in the whole history of our Family ever got their box early. It was my cousin Cecile. Cecile got cancer early in her life, she was only seven when they did the first chemo on her. She got her box when she was fourteen. They were pretty sure it was her last Christmas - at fourteen. They were wrong.

She lived until she was almost seventeen.

I asked her what was in the box just two days after she opened it. She smiled at me, patted my little ten year old head, and gave me the sweetest smile I ever saw:

“I can’t tell you Kevin.”

My face must have dropped a million miles. Even I could feel my eyes grow hot with tears and my lip quiver. She patted my head again:

“What I can tell you is that it changed my life.”

“That’s what everyone says.“ I said with a pout.

“Think about that then, how many people you know got the same gift and every one of them says the same thing about it.”

That made even my ten year old mind stop and stutter:

“Wa..wa..what the heck can be in there if it makes everyone say the same thing.”

She smiled again. She patted my head (the only relative I ever let do that), but Mary Jo was special- she fought harder and longer than anyone I know to live a good life. It wasn’t her fault she got cancer so young. I never even knew her when she wasn’t sick.

I never knew her to have an ounce of pity for her condition either.

Even though my question was rhetorical (and no, I didn’t know what that meant then either) she answered it anyway:

“You will find out when you are eighteen.”

*****

Well, I am eighteen now. Tomorrow is Christmas. I can see the box under the tree. It was nothing special. Just a white box, six inches on a side, wrapped with twine and a hardware tag on it with my name. Somehow, with it being so plain and unremarkable, it shone like a beacon under the tree. All the beautifully wrapped gifts around it; with their fancy bows, ribbons and colored foil wrappings, seemed somehow: gaudy, gauche, greedy. Cheap.

You were allowed to pick it up, even shake it if you wanted to. All the folks over eighteen would watch you with a twinkle in their eyes. Probably remembering their experiences on the Christmas Eve before they got to open the box. They would watch as you shook it in consternation, frustration and wonder. Not wonder in the sense of overawing joy- but wonder in the sense of absolute “what the heck can be in there"- wonder.

The younger kids would try and bribe you with candy, toys, even cash, if you would just tell them what was in it after you opened it. Even my Nerd brother Stephen who was rich at sixteen (Software Wizard- he made six million selling his first program to Cysco systems…he was 13 at the time) tried to bribe my sister Kate with a car, house, AND boat. She turned down his bribe, as glorious as it was. Apparently no amount of money, cash, promises of love, could get anyone who opened the box to reveal its content.

The secret of the box stayed safe…for one hundred and fifty years.

Tomorrow, I would know why.

*****

Everyone had opened their presents. All eyes turned to the plain white box wrapped in twine with my name and "Merry Christmas”; written with red ink on the hardware tag. The only gift left under the tree.

My Dad reached down, picked up the box, and handed it to me without a word. He smiled and pointed to the garage. So did every single relative over eighteen, and believe me, that was a lot of pointing. There were a lot of knowing smiles too.

I wanted to sprint to the garage and tear off the twine, but I didn’t. I walked like I was in the Queen’s Coronation Parade- slowly, sternly, determined not to show my eagerness. Solid. It turns out that every one of us who got to carry that box to the garage seemed to feel the weight of a century or more of tradition bearing down on us, so we all walked with that regal upright determined gait - one that screamed “dignity under duress”. I was no different.

I went to the garage... broke the twine... opened the box.

What I saw was remarkable. No wonder they wanted you to go for a walk. You had to clear your mind, figure things out, let out eighteen years of guessing (and I was as wrong as anyone else) what might be in that box. You needed an hour by yourself just to process the gift you just got.

I cried. I suppose many of us did. Then I laughed. I suppose many of us did. Then I straightened my shoulders. I suppose many others did too. And then…I went for my hour long walk. You could walk longer, but not less than an hour. I walked for two and a half hours. Not the record by the way.

My Dad told me my Uncle John walked for so long that they had to go looking for him- they thought he might freeze to death in the snow. They found him down in the Valley next to Rocky River on the snow covered bike path. He had walked almost twenty miles from my grandparents house in Berea. He was frozen, but smiling, when they found him.

When I walked back in the house- after my two and half hour sojourn through the snow and cold, everyone over eighteen looked me right in the eye, raised whatever glass, cup, or bottle they had in their hand- giving me a little salute acknowledging my admittance to a very select club.

A person who had opened the box.

*****

Becky, my little sister, who was only a year behind me in school, but two years behind me in age- and my very best friend in the whole world- asked me shyly on the way home:

“Kevin, what is in there? You are acting kind of strange.”

I leaned over to whisper in her ear:

“I can’t tell you, Sis.”

Her face fell a million miles and her bottom lip trembled:

“I can tell you it will change your life.”

And it did.

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