What I Wanted To Give: My boyfriend Maurice's Birthday

It seems like I find myself in this situation every year. But then again we have only been together for two years--two birthdays. But today, I couldn't even give my man what I've been getting all my life--love with the best of intentions. Growing up, we didn't have much. I can remember how my mom and dad would improvise so much on Christmas and Birthdays that you could almost feel the hurt and pain in every single gift they gave. I can remember when it was my dad's birthday--that my mom would wrap up the oddest things and present them to him at the birthday dinner she had cooked for him. I can remember how us kids, not being able to afford real birthday banners, would strew the house with toilet paper that we had carefully written happy birthday on. When my dad would come home from work--I wonder if he could feel the pain of breaking through that toilet paper banner we had put in his doorway. My mom was the saint that I will never be. Because she taught us how to love with what we had. She taught us how to make gifts out of things we could do instead of what we couldn't afford to give. Today--I hurt my boyfriend because I didn't give him a gift. I have no money right now to get him something he would really love--and my pride would not let me hang toilet paper for him because I was too selfish to feel the shame of being poor--all over again. But if he could just know that in my heart I wanted to give him the world. I wanted to give him the best things money could buy. I wanted to honor him and his birthday with his friends. I wanted him to have a beautiful birthday but instead he got nothing--not even something homemade and from my heart. What is this inside me that did not want to feel the pain of seeing him accept just a meager attempt to give him something when I have nothing good to give. Happy Birthday, Maurice.