Milestone

Today is Jeron’s 16th birthday, and it marks a sort of a little milestone for me. In March 2005, I happened to identify a CD with some money in it and began to use it to give some money to each grandchild at their birthday time, for them to save for missions and/or college. There was just enough money in the CD so that I was able to give $500 to each child on their birthdays that year. Sometime during that year, I made the determination that I was going give a total of $1000 to each grandchild. After the year was over, we have continued to give $100 each birthday. On the birthday when one of the older grandkids reached age 18, we gave them the reminder of the $1000. We have given grandkids born after March 2005 $100 on each of their birthdays this far.

The milestone is that Jaron is the last of the 29 grandkids born before March 2005 who got the original $500 gift. So for these grandkids, we have finished the commitment we made. We will start to do something else for their birthdays.

Somehow this reminds me of the $25 US savings bond that my parents purchased in my name when I was a little boy. It was to help me with college expenses. Knowing that such a fund existed helped fix my mind on going to college. Late in the Spring of my first year at BYU, when I ran short of money, I wrote my mother asking that they cash in the bond and put the money in my checking account (the account was in the White Salmon bank). Somehow I discovered during the time I was home that summer that they hadn’t cashed in the bond at all. They thought that I might need the money more next year. I think that this repeated itself the next year also. That little savings bond was just like the widow’s meal oil that sustained Elijah and never was able to be used up. Most important, it symbolized to me my parents desires and commitment that I get an education and make something of myself.

Times and money amounts are different and the $25 was probably harder for my parents to come by that any money we have given to our grandkids for their birthdays. But the hope and the love is the same.