I read once that one of the most difficult, and therefore most highly paid jobs in the world was that of master jewel appraiser—more so even than that of jewel cutter. This is because while the ability to wield hammer and chisel in order to achieve the perfect cut is something that can be taught, the ability to look at a stone and be able to determine its worth—or better yet, glance at two stones and tell in an instant which is was worth more than the other—is just something that you are either born with or
you’re not.
I’m not sure, but I think that my kids might actually be blessed with this incredibly rare gift. Yes, both of them. Not that I’ve ever seen them judge one precious stone against another, mind you—there are precious few precious stones in our house—but I have seen them judge something that is, in my opinion, even more valuable (and rare), and judge it with a diligence and cold-blooded precision that would make any master jewel appraiser proud.
I am speaking, of course, of love.
Some people might say that love is intangible: that it can’t be quantified, and therefore can’t be measured. To those people I would say: obviously you have never seen the calculating way one child will look at another child’s Christmas presents. (Or the way they can weigh a cookie with just their eyes. I mean, have you ever really watched the way kids study a plateful of cookies? You would need x-ray vision to be able to better judge the comparative chocolate qualities of two seemingly identical chocolate chip cookies. I’m telling you: if chocolate ever becomes a controlled substance, we won’t have dogs at the airport anymore, we’ll have five year olds.)
But at least when it comes to chocolate chip cookies there is an actual difference—however slight—between cookie A and cookie B. The same can’t really be said about love, especially when it comes down to using material rewards to calibrate the scale. (And they always use material rewards to calculate the scale.) The worst part of such calculating is that it doesn’t matter if they are two very different children with two very different interests—believe me, they will find a way to compare apples to oranges. Or cheeseburgers to eyeliners, as it were. “You bought him another double cheeseburger? Where’s mine?” “But . . . you’re a vegetarian.” “So. You could’ve gotten me something. I’m out of eyeliner.”) And no, it’s no good explaining that Burger King doesn’t sell eyeliner. Or that Sally’s Beauty Supply doesn’t sell cheeseburgers—that I know of. The burger, and the eyeliner, aren’t the point. If they were, I would gladly make a detour to Sally’s every time I stopped at Burger King (and vice versa).
No, the point is the love. And on a child’s love scale, it is very simple to compare cheeseburgers to eyeliner. And then convert those figures to love. (They must be born knowing the conversion formula. Or they learn it in grade school, at the same time they learn how to convert gallons into liters and miles into kilometers.) Of course, I could make the argument that I am already giving the both of them all of my love, all of the time, but they would never buy that. And they shouldn’t, for the simple reason that it’s not true.
It isn’t that I love one more than the other. Really. It’s just that, if I’m being honest, I really don’t dole out equal amounts of love at equal times, for the same reason I don’t try and pour the same amount of milk into a bucket and a thimble: sometimes one just needs more than the other.
Come to think of it, maybe there is something to all this love appraisal stuff after all.