Sympathy Gift Basket - Little Things Mean A Lot

by Eddie Henderson
(Detroit Mi)

This is a true story. I was an employee in an ice cream warehouse in Detroit, Michigan. It was a very small family owned business which I will not name. And my employer, who I will call Mrs. A, and I once were close dear friends until her daughter died. Subsequent to her daughter's death we had not been speaking for about two weeks.

It was about three weeks prior to Christmas Day and Mrs. A had been very depressed and melancholy, as she often would become during the Holidays due to the loss of her only child in a terrible automobile accident Christmas Eve of 2008.

As I said earlier, Mrs. A and I had not been talking, yet I could see and feel her obvious tremendous pain and torment and I truly wanted to bring some joy in what should have been a happy, festive time of year.

So, one morning I gave all of my coworkers Christmas gifts, along with a personal card to each one of them. None of the presents were really expensive, so it wasn't a big deal as far as I was concerned.

I gave Mrs. A a gift basket filled with various cheeses, fruits, crackers, salami, sausages, chocolates etc...And I wish you could have seen the smile on her face.

Understand that Mrs. A is a millionaire and has essentially everything money can buy. Having said that I have always found it to be a tremendous challenge to buy gifts for people who can buy anything they want (that's code for they appear to already have everything they might want).

Wow! Not only did the gift basket make her day, it also change her demeanor for the rest of the holiday season. She kept it on her desk until Christmas Day and showed it to everyone who came into her office, and would smile and say to them "look at what Eddie bought me for Christmas"

A few days later she and her husband gave the office a little party with soft drinks and deep dish pizza...my favorite. Later i discovered that her husband was initially going to buy Chicken or Chinese food. However, Mrs. A insisted on pizza just because of me.

I remember her asking me at the party on at least three occasions "how about another slice of pizza Eddie, have you had enough, do you need more punch?"

As I've said before we were not even speaking to another for a long time. However, subsequent to me giving her the gift basket our relationship could not have been any better.

That's my story about how a Gift Basket made someone happy. Eddie