I have thought a great deal since about why money is so often the substitute we reach for, and I think the truth of it is uncomfortable, and worth saying plainly.

We give money, or things, in place of attention, because money is a way of discharging an obligation without having to be changed by it.

When I transferred cash into my mother’s account, I got to feel that I had done something for her, that I had honored the debt, that I was a good and grateful daughter — and I got all of that without having to slow down, or open myself, or risk actually learning something about her that might have required me to rearrange my life.

A gift is a transaction; it is complete the moment it is given, and it asks nothing further of the giver.