There are people who accept gifts graciously, no matter what may lie under that heap of ribbon and wrapping paper.

My late-Mom was not one of those people.

My siblings and I joke that whenever we gave my Mom a gift, we braced for what would come next.

She’d pull the present out of the box, inspect it thoroughly, turning it this way and that, before putting it back down. She’d furrow her brows, and hem and haw that we shouldn’t make such a fuss. Then, she’d flat-out say, “Don’t spend your money. I don’t need anything. Here, just take it back.”

Sigh. Once again, after my brothers and I had wracked our brains to come up with what we thought was the perfect gift, my Mom would burst our bubble.

It’s not that she meant to do so. It’s just that Mom was being a mom.

When I was little, I would save my quarters and dollars to go to the store to buy my Mom a card and a tiny box of See’s candy or a Walt Whitman Sampler for her birthday or Mother’s Day.  I do believe I remember her smiling, too, whenever I presented them to her eagerly in my outstretched arms.

The irony, of course, is that once I got to be an adult and could afford to buy her much nicer gifts — such as clothes or jewelry — she didn’t want them.

For years, I was downright perplexed by that until I realized the lesson she was teaching me. For her, it truly was the thought that counted. As long as you remembered her with something as simple as a phone call or note, that’s all that mattered. She didn’t need anything beyond that to know that you cared. Everything else was just superfluous.

That hit home after my parents both passed away four years ago, and I found tucked away in a drawer, every card I had ever given them since I was a child. Some were hand-drawn, others store-bought. But there they all were, stored away like some precious treasure worth more than any fancy cashmere sweater or snazzy electronic gadget ever could be to them.

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