This post first appeared as http://mumbaionahigh.com/2009/06/a-hundred-winters-passing-by.html

The Gift Giving Challenge

With the Festive Season coming upon us, buying a gift is a major task many of us face.

Diwali, especially that has special days for special people, buying gift can be a challenge. You need to buy a special gift for your sibling, a special gift for your dad, a special gift for your wife and a special gift for your friend.

Corporate gifting becomes crazy with deciding which exotic mithai to gift or which  unique gadget to send to your special customers.

It’s easy when someone is setting up house, moving to a new place or celebrating a wedding. But what does one give a person who is old, who has it all, and doesn’t want any more?

We scratched our heads and scratched our heads till we came up with this age old yet eternally pleasing gift of flowers.

Seeing a Hundred Winters

It’s not very often that one hears of someone turning hundred.

But longevity is quite prominent in Hubby Dear’s family. His father lived till 90,  his grandmother lived till 94 and a paternal aunt saw her 102nd Birthday. Many other aunts too saw a 100 winters pass by.

This post was written on the occasion of the 100th birthday of a person whose life has touched me very, very briefly . What does one give such a person?

Someone who has ridden a horse carriage on cobbled streets and has seen biplanes flying in the sky.

Who has walked through jungles with leopards and forest squirrels scampering by.

Who has lived the tumultous years of our freedom struggle, one World War and several other global conflicts.

Who knows more than what I will ever know and seen more than what I will ever see.

So we gifted her a bouquet of flowers 100 stems of 5 different flowers –

Roses for her beauty,

Baby’s Breath for all the delicate and pretty things in her life,

Tuberoses for her fragrance,

Carnations for her endurance and finally

Oriental Pink Lilium for all the exotic things in her life.

Thus we congratulated her for seeing a Hundred Winters Pass By.

This gracious lady lived for another two years but our connection became even stronger as the years went by. As years went by we welcomed her grandson into our family and she became the great-grandmother of two young lads she never saw.

I do hope she has passed on this gift of longevity to her descendants.