Story by Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
On June 20th, I got an intriguing text message from my daughter Jessica. It said “Hopefully you’re not by mom…I have a gift for her birthday. You can’t say anything… it’s a secret. Tell me when you are alone, and I’ll tell you.” One hour and 26 minutes later, I sent her the reply (go ahead…) Sometimes I don’t realize I have a message and am slow to respond. Her reply “Trev and I bought tickets to fly in for mom’s birthday. We fly in Monday 8-26 and come home Saturday the 31st. We arrive at 2 and will grab a car. I’m telling her she will have a package delivery around 4.” I immediately responded, “I can’t think of ANYTHING she would like more… I’m choking up. Mum’s the word. Do I need to pick you up at the airport or do you want to surprise her by knocking on the door? I guarantee tears of joy will flow! You were answering me while I was answering you… She’s gonna LOVE THIS!!!” She went on and explained how this came about, and I was in tears thinking about how much her mom was going to love this surprise. Then I told her “Maybe there’s nothing I would like more too…” She replied “ I told mom I had the perfect gift and ordering it so it would arrive on her birthday. Sneaky, right?” I simply said “OMG, we love you sooo much”.
That’s how it all started but you need a little background information to fully understand the significance of this conversation. We moved to Oklahoma over 3 years ago and Jessica has only been able to visit once in this time period. She works hard in her job, as does her husband Trevor. They recently moved from California back to Arizona and have been dealing with finding a home which is being built and finding a rental to live in while that is happening. All the time working both of their jobs remotely. They both were under extreme stress, and we understood how difficult it was for them to visit. Add to that the fact that it wasn’t possible for us to leave to visit them. I KNEW, full well, that this was indeed the finest gift she could give her mother. I was struggling with keeping this secret from my wife and treaded lightly on anything I told her. I don’t like to lie to her, so I carefully crafted any enquiries from her with half-truths and white lies. Carlene is way smarter than me and a few times I was afraid that my facial expressions would give away my half-truth that I didn’t know what was going on. She trusts me and I apparently pulled it off as she was completely surprised when she opened the door yesterday and saw Jessica and Trevor. Our next texts were on July 7th and 8th. I was scared that I wasn’t smart enough to pull it off.
Then Carlene’s mother had a serious fall and was struggling with her health. We were concerned about Jessica having to change her plans, so we were doing some serious praying about the situation. We struggled with whether or not to continue with this big surprise. But we did, and it all worked out okay, and the big reveal was a total success. We had several great texts going back and forth between me and Jessica, and I lightened them up with a few silly pictures of me goofing around shooshing and acting like I was being naughty. I showed the entire texting text along with the silly pictures to Carlene, who couldn’t be upset with us after being able to hug her precious daughter.
We will be busy this week enjoying being able to spend time with our loved ones. Oklahoma daughter Jillian and maybe her husband Tim will be spending a day with us too, and Amy who might just as well be family. So, we will be steeped up in precious family time. Life is good when you can spend it with the people you love best. If only they could all be here… But that’s what you get when your children and grandchildren reside all over the world. We are grateful to enjoy these visits whenever they may present themselves. This week is a special week, and we look forward to as many of these special weeks as we can accumulate in the remaining time God gives us.
