TIME AFTER TIME I came to your gate with raised hands, asking for more and yet more.
You gave and gave, now in slow measure, now in sudden excess.
I took some, and some things I let drop; some lay heavy on my hands; some I made into playthings and broke them when tired; till the wrecks and the hoard of your gifts grew immense, hiding you, and the ceaseless expectation wore my heart out.
~ Rabindranath Tagore, Fruit Gathering 26
When I was young, I received presents from my grandmother (my father’s mother) every Christmas and on my birthday. I remember one fascinating encyclopaedia she sent me that had great pictures. One of the post-celebration trials was to send a thank you letter. This was the extent of my connection to her. She lived on the Devon/Cornwall border, which was a long way from Essex back in the 1960s, and although we visited her once, I have no memory of her. She and my grandfather lived separate lives, and I have only the vaguest of a vague half-memory of either of them. As I look back now, I can only imagine that there had been some rift between my father and his parents, who separated when he was young.
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