“The Giver”

“Dar had no one to please anymore. There were no loved ones or friends to whom she might be of service. She lacked a recipient for the invaluable gifts that she had to bestow. She was now a giver without a taker. And so she gave her boundless love to the world at large, to the squirrels chasing one another on branches, to the infants staring backward over their mothers’ shoulders, to the golden freesias scenting the air with the nectar of apricots, to the blinding sun and the magical moon, to the blowing winds and the pelting rains, to the blackness of night and the diamantine spangle of day. No one had ever fairly returned Dar’s devotion. In almost every case, she had served fair and been served foul. But all those years of giving without stint had expanded the woman’s heart so that it now included everything around her. Now life itself had become her gift.”