Of all the gifts

Children want so many things.  Their want- lists are long and vivid.  They are children!

Adults try to be a bit more sophisticated.  They still want things, but the more abstract stuff like life, liberty and world peace show up.
 
We want friends, good jobs, great coworkers.  It is truly difficult to give people the perfect gift, the universal one, the one almost everyone might appreciate.

Yet, I see it everyday in the eyes of school children who clamor to be heard, who are desperate to talk to me, who flock around me doing everything they can to be noticed. 

I see it in the eyes of strangers who strike up odd conversations at the check out in the store, on airplanes, at bus stops.

And sadly I see it at restaurants where children act out because their parents are on cell phones, at the beach because their parents are sleeping in the sun, or talking to other parents.
 
What we all want most, what we crave, what some of us will do anything to get -- is attention!

Not just the warm presence of another body, or group of bodies, but somebody who is actively focusing on us -- listening, responding, really paying attention.

Of all the gifts we can give another person, our undivided attention is the greatest one of all.