Gifts

I'd like to say that I was tidying the basement this morning, but the fact is that I was doing the pre-tidy stuff: going through boxes of things I've shoved out of sight real quick! before company arrived.

Here's a picture of something I discovered.



I saw it, and I recognized it as something having to do with 50.  I asked myself, "Did someone give this to me when I turned 50?"  Since I'm only (wait, let me do the math...) 38 years old, that wasn't likely.

Then I remembered: Oh yeah!  I know what's in there:





Now don't go peein' your pants or planning to rob me: these aren't dubloons from a sunken chest.

These are 50 half-dollars.  If you took 'em to the grocery store, you could use them to purchase twenty-five dollars' worth of goodies.  These aren't hyper-valuable to the general population.

So why do I have them?  Why have I kept them, rather than spend them?

They were a gift from my sister, a way to congratulate me and commemorate my losing 50 pounds.  These coins are a symbol of her thoughtfulness, support, and love.  And my holding on to them is my holding on to her thoughtfulness, support, and love.

Uncovering my 50 half-dollars reminds me that I lost 50 pounds, have kept most of them off, and can lose the more than 50 pounds I still have to go.