animal and human.
He had walked through woods, and sat at night beside a campfire. Although he had through the memories learned about the pain of loss and loneliness, now he gained, too, an understanding of solitude and its joy.
“What is your favourite?” Jonas asked the Giver. “You don’t have to give it away yet,” he added quickly. “Just tell me about it, so I can look forward to it, because I’ll have to receive it when your job is done.”
The Giver smiled. “Lie down,” he said. “I’m happy to give it to you.”
Jonas felt the joy of it as soon as the memory began. Sometimes it took a while for him to get his bearings, to find his place. But this time he fitted right in and felt the happiness that pervaded the memory.
He was in a room filled with people, and it was warm, with firelight glowing on a hearth. He could see through a window that outside it was night, and snowing. There were coloured lights: red and green and yellow, twinkling from a tree which was, oddly, inside the room. On a table, lighted candles stood in a polished golden holder and cast a soft, flickering glow. He could smell things cooking, and he heard soft laughter. A golden-haired dog lay sleeping on the floor.
On the floor there were packages wrapped in brightly coloured paper and tied with gleaming ribbons. As Jonas watched, a small child began to pick up the packages and pass them around the room: to other children, to adults who were obviously parents, and to an older, quiet couple, man and woman, who sat smiling together on a couch.
While Jonas watched, the people began one by one to untie the ribbons on the packages, to unwrap the bright papers, open the boxes and reveal toys and clothing and books. There were cries of delight. They hugged one another.
The small child went and sat on the lap of the old woman, and she rocked him and rubbed her cheek against his.
Jonas opened his eyes and lay contentedly on the bed, still luxuriating in the warm and comforting memory. It had all been there, all the things he had learned to treasure.
“What did you perceive?” the Giver asked.
“Warmth,” Jonas replied, “and happiness. And – let me think. Family. That it was a celebration of some sort, a holiday. And something else – I can’t quite get the word for it.”
“It will come to you.”
“Who were the old people? Why were they there?” It had puzzled Jonas, seeing them in the room. The Old of the community did not ever leave their special place, the House of the Old, where they were so well cared for and respected.
“They were called Grandparents.”
“Grand parents?”
“Grandparents. It meant parents-of-the-parents, long ago.”
“Back and back and back?” Jonas began to laugh. “So actually, there could be parents-of-the-parents-of-the-parents-of-the-parents?”
The Giver laughed, too. “That’s right. It’s a little like looking at yourself looking in a mirror looking at yourself looking in a mirror.”
Jonas frowned. “But my parents must have had parents! I never thought about it before. Who are my parents-of-the-parents? Where are they?”
“You could go and look in the Hall of Open Records. You’d find the names. But think, son. If you apply for children, then who will be their parents-of-the-parents? Who will be their grandparents?”
“My mother and father, of course.”
“And where will they be?”
Jonas thought. “Oh,” he said slowly. “When I finish my training and become a full adult, I’ll be given my own dwelling. And then when Lily does, a few years later, she’ll get her own dwelling, and maybe a spouse, and children if she applies for them, and then Mother and Father—”
“That’s right.”
“As long as they’re still working and contributing to the community, they’ll go and live with the other Childless Adults. And they won’t be part of my life any more.
“And after that, when the time comes, they’ll go to the House of the Old,” Jonas went on. He was thinking aloud. “And they’ll be well cared for, and respected, and when they’re released, there will be a celebration.”
“Which you won’t attend,” the Giver pointed out.
“No, of course not, because I won’t even know about it. By then I’ll be so busy with my own life. And Lily will, too. So our children, if we have them, won’t know who their parent-of-parents are, either.
“It seems to work pretty well that way, doesn’t it? The way we do it in our community?” Jonas asked. “I just didn’t realise there was any other way, until I received that memory.”
“It works,” the Giver agreed.
Jonas hesitated. “I certainly liked the memory, though. I can see why it’s your favourite. I couldn’t quite get the word for the whole feeling of it, the feeling that was so strong in the room.”
“Love,” the Giver told him.
Jonas repeated it. “Love.” It was a word and concept new to him.
They were both silent for a minute. Then Jonas said, “Giver?”
“Yes?”
“I feel very foolish saying this. Very, very foolish.”
“No need. Nothing is foolish here. Trust the memories and how they make you feel.”
“Well,” Jonas said, looking at the floor, “I know you don’t have the memory any more, because you gave it to me, so maybe you won’t understand this—”
“I will. I am left with a vague wisp of that one; and I have many other memories of families, and holidays, and happiness. Of love.”
Jonas blurted out what he was feeling. “I was thinking that … well, I can see that it wasn’t a very practical way to live, with the Old right there in the same place, where maybe they wouldn’t be well taken care of, the way they are now, and that we have a better-arranged way of doing things. But anyway, I was thinking, I mean feeling, actually, that it was kind of nice, then. And that I wish we could be that way, and that you could be my grandparent. The family in the memory seemed a little more …” He faltered, not able to find the word he wanted.
“A little more complete,” the Giver suggested.
Jonas nodded. “I liked the feeling of love,” he confessed. He glanced nervously at the speaker on the wall, reassuring himself that no one was listening. “I wish we still had that,” he whispered. “Of course,” he added quickly, “I do understand that it wouldn’t work very well. And that it’s much better to be organised the way we are now. I can see that it was a dangerous way to live.”
“What do you mean?”
Jonas hesitated. He wasn’t certain, really, what he had meant. He could feel that there was risk
