In
"The Gift," Lee discusses two incidents involving the removal of a
splinter from another's hand. When he describes removing a splinter from
his wife's finger, he alludes to a skilled tenderness on his part:
"Look how I shave her thumbnail down / so carefully she feels no pain".
When his father had removed a splinter from a younger Lee's palm, Lee
responded with humble appreciation—he gave his father a kiss. Lee
digresses—offering some more boastful, even humorous possible responses
to having apprehended the removed splinter ("Ore Going Deep for My
Heart," "Death visited here!"), and reminding the reader that it is, in
fact, he who grew into the adult who removed his wife's splinter. He, by
modestly giving his father a kiss, suggests that a gift has merit
solely on account of its being a gift—even if that gift is a removed
splinter. What ultimately matters is not that Lee had been feeling pain,
but that, at the moment he kissed his father, he presently beheld a
gift from him.
Lee does not act particularly humble when removing his wife's splinter,
however, even though his father was a physician—because, regardless of
what this occasion had meant for him in the past, he was presently with
his wife, able to give her the gift of relief. Lee has grown and
matured; he is able to proudly identify with his giving father, rather
than prolong his past identity as a receiving, humble child. ♥ Hope this helps!!
