Paris Originals
10/01/2007
 Until her death a few weeks ago I had forgotten all about Leona Helmsley. “The queen of mean,” the woman who once sneered “We don?t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes,” went her reward and bequeathed $12 million to her dog. Two of her four grandchildren got nothing, reportedly because they refused to give their children the names she wanted.
Not being a pet lover myself I will allow that I cannot appreciate the depth of affection some people feel for their animals. But by any measure of decency Helmsley’s action strikes me as selfish at best. However, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. I have heard that many people tend to accentuate the dominant characteristic of their personality as they get older. The fearful become paranoid. The cockeyed optimists become Polyannas. The angry become downright spiteful. Perhaps Helmsley merely turned a bent toward selfishness into outright narcissism at the end of her days.
If our dominant personality trait truly does come to overshadow other traits late in life then one action of my late maternal grandfather is telling indeed. In his waning days he would stuff dollar bills into empty pill bottles and leave them outside by the trash cans for the garbage men on pickup day. Nobody told him to do it, nor had anybody taken advantage of his infirmity to | con him out of his money. He did it because he wanted to. But generosity had always been woven into his personality. My Granddaddy Horace Paris knew what it was like to be poor, yet instead of making him fearful and miserly he tried to share what he had with others. He never amassed much of a bank account, but when someone came to him with a legitimate need he shared what resources he had. He even co-signed loans for friends who needed cash. My mother recalls their family going hungry on several occasions when the friend who needed the cash couldn’t pay back the note. I saw him slip money into a child’s or grandchild’s pocket and walk away as if nothing had happened. He faithfully gave 10% of his income to his church, and he was first in line when the church took on a mission endeavor or a building project. Therefore, the dollar bills in the pill bottles were merely an indication that the generosity of his soul had won the day in his twilight years. All he wanted to do was give what he had away, even to strangers, even to the garbage men. So I can’t help wondering: Am I cultivating a spirit of generosity in my own life? Am I weaving generosity into the tapestry of my soul? Will generosity be the trait that rises to the surface when others fall away? Oh great. Here’s that “Estimate of Giving” card from the church. Now what am I going to do? |
The United Church of Christ.