Mother's Day

I was given the most wonderful surprise for Mother's Day. After church, my daughter took me on a treasure hunt for 16 "gifts," one for each year I've been a mother. She chauffeured me around in her new car and things went well until we reached the Waterfront Park in Saint Marys. The gift, which she had set out that very morning, had disappeared.

Disappointed for her sake, we proceeded to the next location -- the cemetery. All that remained was a tiny scrap of wrapping paper . . . and a diminishing faith in human kind. After all, we could see how it might be hard for a child to restrain himself from ripping into a wrapped package but stealing something from a grave! Horrors!

Each of the gifts had been wrapped and marked with an "explanation" for the gift and the next clue. With the second clue in a row missing, Griffin had to resort to her cheat sheet to remember where the next gift was placed.

Fortunately, this gift was where she had placed it (and the clue had been too obscure to be followed by whoever stole the cemetery gift). The next two gifts were at our church and there we had to interrupt the hunt until 3:30 p.m. when Frank and I had finished the two-and-a-half hour class I take and he mentors each Sunday.

We started up the hunt again, successfully, but ran into problems with one of the last gifts. This gift had been placed near the entrance bridge into our subdivision. This time, the wrapping paper and clues were there but not the gift itself. An improvement . . . at least we could continue with the hunt.

The penultimate gift was still where she had left it that morning and as the final gift was in our home, it was still there as well.

A lot of work, as well as heart, went into the entire event. Griffin's efforts brought life and meaning to those oft-repeated sayings: "It's the thought that counts" and "Long walk part of gift." It will be a Mother's Day I never forget.

As for the blow up Pirates of the Caribbean swords stolen from the water front park, I hope they are being thoroughly enjoyed. On the other hand, I am kind of sad I didn't receive the "Victorian hair clips" that Griffin picked out especially for me and the book of crossword puzzles would have been nice to take along on our trip to Italy and France . . .

It does give one pause to think . . . would any of the other gifts have been taken had they been found OR were some gifts found and left in place by some caring soul who saw them as part of an adventure they weren't a part of but possessing enough imagination to relish the fact that someone had received a wonderful gift?