We found bigfoot!

Jeremy said the Doc told him that the patchiness would fill in as he got older.

Surprise!

I have always watched surprise shows and wanted to be a part of something like that. I have seen the soldiers coming home to surprise family members. The fake surprise on the spoiled sixteen year old’s face when Mommy and Daddy give her the $70,000 car on Sweet Sixteen shows and people receiving a million dollars from Publisher’s Clearing House. I never really knew how I would be able to be a part of the whole surprise thing. Nothing really big ever happens to me (unless giving birth to my second son in the back seat of our car at a gas station counts). I live a very normal life. I love my predictable life. I have two beautiful boys that keep me on my toes. That is generally all the excitement I have the energy for.

But, I still always thought a surprise would be fun. I don’t mean “oh, look you got me flowers” surprise. I mean a rock you to the core surprise. I got my opportunity about two weeks ago.

The planning started only about a month before the event was to take place. I was planning a trip up to my mother’s place in July. The boys and I had taken the train up in June and spent a week with her. It was a wonderful time and we were really looking forward to doing it again before school started for Evan. I had set aside the date I planned on taking the boys north on when I got an email from my aunt in Australia. Technically, she is my aunt. She is my mother’s sister. She is ten years older than I. She has loved me and tormented me as her little sister all my life. I am proud to be her pseudo little sister. Ishea, pronounced eye-shay, sent me an email asking for me to do whatever she asked me to do, drinking would be involved and confidentiality would be necessary. I was both compelled and completely terrified. This was my big sister asking for me to give up free choice for a weekend. God only knew what she had in store for me. My husband was even suspect over what would be in the works. The truth was actually much more benign than expected.

Ishea had not been over to the States in four years. Both my mother and I were feeling the distance between Ishea and us deeply lately. I missed Ishea terribly and the phone calls and emails just were not doing it. So, once I got this email from Ishea I contacted her via email and she called me later that night. It would seem that her twenty fifth high school reunion would be taking place the first weekend of August and she wanted me to be her date. Well, did it look like I had any choice? Nah. Even if I did, I would not have made any other choice than to go. I really would follow Ishea to the ends of the Earth if she needed me to.

She would come over to America. Spend a week here with me and my cousin (her other niece) since we live in the same town, head south for a few days for the reunion then north to surprise her sister (my mother). This is where the crazy surprise comes into play. Little big of background: I speak to my mother at least four times a day. We are in constant touch and never keep things from each other. So, here I am now sitting on this surprise for her that I bigger than anything I have ever had before. I had to start avoiding my mother. This was incredibly difficult for me. I started to feign illnesses or bad moods so I could get off the phone sooner. That was the only way I knew how to avoid telling her that her baby sister was coming into town. Ishea was to be Mom’s belated birthday present. Mom turned sixty this year and we couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate that.

I told Mom that I planned on making our trip north a few days later than we had already planned. She was still expecting me and the boys for our week long vacation with her. She had called me countless times to tell me about all the things she thought would be fun. All I could think was “if you only knew what we have in store for you!” On the day we ventured north I arranged with Mom that we would meet her and Pharris at a restaurant since the boys were starving and she would be coming back from getting Pharris from school. This would be the first time we ever did something like that but not too out of the question. My car full of people stopped at a Central Market to pick up some flowers. We only hoped we would be the first people at the restaurant. That would make concealing the surprise so much easier. With flowers in hand we headed onto the last leg of our trip. Several phone calls and few little lies later Ishea, the boys and I made it to the restaurant before Mom and Pharris. Ishea and Evan went to the bar area to stay out of sight while Kellen and I waited at the table. Ishea and I both were worried that Motor mouth Evan would let the cat out of the bag before we could surprise mom. It was best to keep him away from the table and not tempted to yell out “we have a surprise and Ishea is here!” or some other form of that. There was only one other table with people at it in the restaurant. At least we knew we wouldn’t be disturbing too many other people. We knew there would most likely be squealing and definitely crying.

Evan came out first after I gave the all clear sign (me removing my glasses from my head). He had his beautiful little pink bouquet of flowers for mom. Why he occupied her attention, Ishea circled around mom and came up behind her. She wrapped her arms around her and kissed her on the cheek. Mom was struggling to turn around and see who was there. When she did she turned to look at me with a completely bewildered look on her face. I can truly understand what a person’s face looks like right before their eyeballs fall out of the sockets. Mom’s mouth dropped open, her eyes opened wide and all she could say was “Oh, my God! It’s so good to see you.” Pharris was in complete shock too. I don’t think I have ever seen him look so confused before. But, once he got a hold on her he wasn’t going to let her go. It was so sweet. He had his “Stinker.” That is his nick name for his baby sister. He held her close and wouldn’t let go.

At first it was almost like Mom didn’t know what to do. She kept her distance a little bit and even leaned over at one point and poked Ishea on the shoulder as if to see if she was real. Then she was able to get a real hug. And that is when the tears started. All this time we had spent missing Ishea was realized. We were the Motley Crew again. Even if we only had a week together we were determined to love each other as hard as we could so we could make it until the next visit.