Loh Contest #267 If I Could Give a Gift This Holiday Season

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If you could give a gift that has great potential to do good for this holiday season, what would it be, who would you give it to, and why?

Holidays are always a season of joy, celebration, and gift-giving. Many people focus on buying physical things for their friends and family, but sometimes the most meaningful gifts are not wrapped in fancy papers — they are the ones that touch lives and shape futures.

For me, if I could give a gift with great potential to do good this holiday season, it would be paying the school fees for next year’s academic session for two children of a single mother in my neighborhood.

There is something painful and heartbreaking about seeing children sit at home playing while their mates dress up every morning and head to school. Each time I see them, it reminds me of how hard life can suddenly become for someone who once had a stable family.

According to their mother, her husband died mysteriously. Ever since his death, the situation became even more difficult. Instead of supporting her, her husband’s family did not bother to check on her or the children. In fact, all they did was return only to collect his valuable property. As if that wasn’t enough pain, she was pregnant at the time he died, carrying both grief and responsibility on her shoulders.

Her own parents are no longer alive, and only her elder brother helps her occasionally. To survive, she goes out daily, hawking on the streets just to put food on the table. With this struggle, the children remain at home because she simply cannot afford their school fees, books, or registration.

Yet, I remember how different things used to be. When her husband was alive, she looked healthy, happy, and well cared for. Her first child even attended one of the best schools. Life was stable. But everything changed the moment tragedy struck.

The most painful part is what she told me — that her late husband’s mother had strongly warned him never to marry her. And with the way things happened during his sickness, death, and burial, she believes his mother may have had a hand in what happened.

That is why, if I could give one meaningful gift this holiday, it would be to sponsor those children’s education. Paying their school fees, providing their books, and giving them the chance to return to school would be a gift not just for the children, but for their mother and the entire family. Because education is the key. In today’s world, a child without education faces serious struggles in the future.

She is not related to me in any way, but compassion has no boundaries. Sometimes, the best gifts we give are the ones that restore hope to someone who needs it the most.