The Gift of Time

She watched as tears formed in her son’s eyes. He didn’t say anything but moved back to the sink and began shuffling some dishes around. Jill rolled her eyes in frustration, knowing that if she wanted the dishes done, she would have to do them. She didn’t have time though, and she wasn’t going to miss the dinner she scheduled with her best friend.

“Those better be done when I get home” Jill told her son. “I’ll be back in two hours.”

Jill put on a jacket as she left the house. The restaurant was close, and she decided to walk to try and get through some of her frustrations so that she could have a good evening with her best friend.

The wind was colder than expected, and Jill had to zip up her jacket to try and keep the chill out. She felt herself at the point of tears. It had been a rough go since her divorce, and she knew it had been rough on her son too. She didn’t feel that she had the emotional energy to do much more than work to smile and pretend that things were okay.

After a little bit, Jill glanced at the clock on the wall. Her friend was ten minutes late. Jill found a little frustration building inside herself. She checked her phone and then texted her friend. “I’m here” the text read, “at a table on the North side.”

Jill continued to wait, and when the server asked if she was ready, Jill told him she would keep waiting for her friend. As she grew more tense, she looked again at the clock. Twenty minutes. Her friend was twenty minutes late. “Go figure,” Jill said dejectedly. “Go figure.”

Jill nearly jumped when she heard her text notification. She grabbed her phone, but then stared in disbelief, fighting back the tears.

Jill ordered two meals to go, but she paid for them herself. “We’ll use the gift card together later,” she said to herself, thinking of her friend.

As Jill walked home, she found herself growing excited to share with her son. Walking inside the house, Jill saw her son sitting on a chair by the sink. The dishes hadn’t been touched, but Jill could see that he had been crying. He jumped up, fearful that he was in trouble, and started washing dishes again.

"Hey bud” Jill said, “let’s go and eat dinner and watch a movie together.”

“Really?” her son said, his face brightening a little, “I thought you were eating with your best friend.”

“You are my best friend,” Jill said, hugging him. “Let’s be sure that we always have each other”

One way that we can change the world is to give another person the gift of our time. People often need our time and care more than they need our money or gifts. While money and gifts are certainly helpful, nothing can ever replace you or what you can do for someone else.

Believing in someone or something is generally not an efficient process, and it probably shouldn’t be. In a world that promotes high efficiency and that rewards those who can be the most efficient, we may feel that there is not much room to believe in something or someone that takes longer than the few minutes that we have available.