The true gift leaves no trace on the hand of the giver.

From Alfred’s journal

The man in the brown coat came back to the bench by the gravel lot today, which he has done every Thursday since October, and he emptied his pockets of sunflower seed without once looking up to see who took it. He never counts us. For years I thought the measure of a gift was what it cost, and I watched people hand things over with the price still showing, waiting for the thank-you to balance the ledger. Switch says a buried nut you forget is the only honest one, and he forgets a great many. The true gift leaves no trace on the hand of the giver; the brown coat went off toward the road with his hands in his pockets, already thinking about something else. What I do not know yet is whether a man can decide to forget, or whether it only happens to him.