Plot Summary
The story begins during the Christmas of 1943 with George Pratt, a man who is unsatisfied with his life and ready to commit suicide, standing on a bridge. A strange, shabbily-dressed but well-mannered man approaches him, carrying a satchel. The man strikes up a conversation and George tells the man that he wishes he had never been born. The man tells him that his wish has been made official and that he was never born. The man tells George that he should take the satchel with him and pretend to be a door-to-door brush salesman when he sees anyone. When George returns home, he does as he is told and is shocked to discover that not only does his wife not know him, everyone who knew him took different and often negative steps in life because George had never been born, including his little brother, who he had saved in a pond accident and instead had died without George to save him. George offers "his wife" a complimentary upholstery brush, which she takes, and then he leaves the house after his wife's new husband tells him to leave. Upon his departure, his wife's son pretends to shoot him with a fake cap gun and shouts, "You're dead. Why won't you die?" George returns to the bridge and questions the man, who explains to him that he wanted more when he had already been given the greatest gift of all: the gift of life. George, now realizing the lesson, begs the man to return the gift of life and the man agrees to it. George returns home to check if the man did, in fact, change everything back to normal. Sure enough, everything is normal and he hugs his wife, and explains that he thought he had lost her. She is confused, and as he is about to explain everything, his hand bumps a brush on the sofa behind him. Without turning around, George knows the brush was the one he had presented to her earlier.
Read more about this topic: The Greatest Gift (story)
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