最珍贵的礼物 --- 无条件的爱

once upon a time, a man punished his 5-year-old daughter for using up the family’s only roll of expensive gold wrapping paper. money was tight, and he became even more upset when on christmas eve, he saw that the child had pasted the gold paper so as to decorate a shoebox to put under the christmas tree.
nevertheless, the next morning the little girl, filled with excitement, brought the gift box to her father and said, "this is for you, daddy!"
as he opened the box, the father was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction.

but when he opened it, he found it was empty and again his anger flared. "don't you know, young lady,” he said harshly, “when you give someone a present there's supposed to be something inside the package!"
the little girl looked up at him with tears rolling from her eyes and said: "daddy, it's not empty. i blew kisses into it until it was all full."
the father was crushed. he fell on his knees and put his arms around his precious little girl. he begged her to forgive him for his unnecessary anger.
an accident took the life of the child only a short time later. it is told that the father kept that little gold box by his bed for all the years of his life. whenever he was discouraged or faced difficult problems he would open the box, take out an imaginary kiss, and remember the love of this beautiful child who had put it there.

in a very real sense, each of us as human beings have been given an invisible golden box filled with unconditional love and kisses from our children, family, friends and god.
there is no more precious possession anyone could hold.




从前,一位父亲惩罚了自己5岁的女儿,因为她用光了家里仅有的一卷昂贵的金色包装纸。家中余钱无多，在圣诞前夜来临时，父亲变得更加心烦意乱，他看到了圣诞树下的一个鞋盒，女儿原来把金纸贴在了这个鞋盒上做装饰。
然而，圣诞日的早上，小女孩满是兴奋得把这个圣诞礼盒呈到了父亲面前，说到：“爸爸，这个送给你！”
在父亲打开礼盒时，他为自己先前的过度反应而局促不安着。

但当他打开盒子后，发现里面是空的，他的怒火再次爆发了。“你不知道吗，小丫头，”他严厉地说，“当你送人礼物时，盒子里面应该是有东西的！”
小女孩抬头看着气头上的父亲，泪水在她的眼眶中打圈：“爸爸，它不是空的。这里面装满了我的吻。”
男人顿时被击垮了。他跪下双膝，双手环抱着自己珍爱的小女孩，祈求她的原谅。
之后不久，一场事故夺走了小女孩的生命。据说，父亲便将那个小金盒子放在床头，一直陪伴着他的余生。无论何时他感到气馁或者遇到难办的事情，他就会打开礼盒，取出一个假想的吻，记起漂亮女儿给予了自己特殊的爱。
从一个非常真实的意义上说，我们每个人都被赠与过一个无形的金色礼盒，那里面装满了来自子女，家人，朋友及上帝无条件的爱与吻。

人们所能拥有的最珍贵的礼物莫过于此了。
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