THE BEST GIFT

WRITING CHALLENGE - as I begin the New Year.  Saw this writing challenge for the New Year on a friends blog!  Decided to give it a whirl…

1. Write about the best gift you gave to someone else. What made it so special?

Back in 1986, when we were living in New Mexico, my husbands brothers & sisters were going to have a family reunion at a resort in So. Carolina.  Mickey had decided we couldn't afford it and had told them he would not be attending.

First - Behind his back (yes!!) I contacted his boss and made arrangement for him to have that week off and to not tell him I had contacted him.  He agreed.

Second - I purchased the plane ticket.

Third - I got a Chinese fortune cookie and broke it in half.  I cut out a very small strip of paper and wrote on it "You will go on a VERY long trip very soon!".  I placed it inside the cookie and glued the cookie back together.

Fourth - The Sunday, before he was to leave on Monday, after church we went out to eat.  After eating I told him I had his dessert in my purse and took out the fortune cookie, in a plastic bag, and gave it to him.  The look on his face as he cracked that cookie open and then read the "fortune" was, and is, priceless to me.   

Fifth - Then I took out the airline ticket and gave it to him and told him what I had done.  He left early on Monday morning.

It was absolutely the best gift I've ever been able to give anyone.

By the way, these 26 years later, that little slip of paper (with the glob of glue that held it in place!!) resides as one of his treasures in his jewelry box.  I am sure one of our children will some day have it and be sharing this story.