Most people think of gifts as a material thing. They think of toys in pretty boxes and new clothes that now lay unworn in your closet or shoved under your bed. But the best gift I’ve ever received is nothing like any of those. I can almost still hear the gentle, lilting voice of my grandmother singing me lullabies that seemed to hang in the air. Each note she sung told its own story of joy, sorrow, hope, and pain. Those songs were a gift unlike any other I had known, wrapped not in fickle, crinkled paper, but in love and lessons and care. It is because of her that I perform those same songs every day now, my voice ringing out unwavering in the grandest forte, sharing my gift with the ears of a hundred strangers.