A few years ago, I gave my Mom a great present that cost practically nothing.

I used to work close to my grandmother’s (Granny) house and I would eat lunch with her several times a week. She would often have little chores for me to do when I arrived—change a light bulb, get something off a shelf or out of a closet.

One closet retrieval trip I found a huge box of old photos. Some of them were over 50-years old and others I remember from my childhood. We don’t have many photos from when I was young. My Mom’s housed burned and our photos were lost. That was about 15-years ago.

So, I asked her if I could borrow this box and scan a bunch of them in. Granny told me to just take them, she didn’t want them anymore. Reluctantly I took them, knowing they would be safe with me.

It was probably a year later, just in passing, my Mom mentioned how she missed having the photo of her Dad (we called him Paw Paw) in his Army uniform. It, like all the other photos, was lost in the fire.

I remembered seeing that photo in the box Granny gave me. So, I did a little digging and found it. It was a little beat up. So after a quick scan and a trip through Photoshop, I had a great looking photo to print and give to her.

It was the simplest gift, but meant so much to her. Those are the gifts I life to give.