Free gifts

This months I have refused to claim free gifts offered. OG department store often offered free gift of a pen. But is it really free? They ask you to collect the gift at a special table. At the table is a sales person making sales pitch on certain products. Usually before you can claim your free gift you have to listen to a brief sales pitch. The pen itself is not of a good quality.

When I was teaching, parents often gave gifts on Teachers' Day. I always suspected the extravagant gifts especially when it came from parent of a child with discipline and behavioral problems. It made me feel so cheap and bought. Usually these parents were more reticent in cooperating with teachers on discipline matters.

Sometimes parents' gift was in recognition and appreciation of extraordinary act of service I had rendered such as spending extra time in remedial lessons for the child. In this case, it was nice to have your hard work appreciated by this token.

Are there truly free gift in this world. Gifts that are given without expecting anything in return in any form? Yes, it is usually a gift given purely as expression of love or charitable gifts. The following are gifts I received in the past which were purely out of love:

• Mothers' Day cards made by my children when they were in preschool. I had helped my own students making Mothers' Day card, and I know first hand that these young kid's expression of love to their moms are at the purest and most innocent. They only wanted the best for their beloved mommies. Alas as they grew older, that blind devotion became nonexistent.
  
• Gifts received during courtship.
• A set of pearl earring and necklace my hubby bought while I was on a long visit to Indonesia. He said he missed me so much that he had to buy something to give upon my return.
• The gift of life paid by another's life: the gift of Jesus, paid in full even knowing that some may reject it and trample it on the ground.