Adele's Stories

It was the most beautiful collection of flowers I’d ever seen. A light breeze blew, stirring them together giving the appearance of a Van Goh. I just knew my mother would love her birthday present. She’d been talking about making a prayer garden for years. It wasn’t easy keeping her out of the backyard or out of view of the backyard this last week, but dad was a great help.
All of her favorite flowers were here along with a few humming bird feeders and a beautifully intricate stone bench that I serendipitously found at a garage sale. Already butterflies were fluttering around and I managed to see a hummingbird feeding before it saw me and flew away. I beamed with pride. I just knew mom was going to love it.
I took one last long look, combing it over one last time for flaws before having a deep breath and heading inside to wait for mom. It felt like hours before her car finally pulled in the driveway. I leapt to my feet and rushed to meet her at the door.
“Happy birthday!” I exclaimed as she walked in. She put a startled hand over her chest before smiling and wrapping me in a hug.
“Thank you my little love!”
“I have a surprise for you,”
“Is that so?” Her smile widened. I nodded enthusiastically and took her by the hand to lead her outside. I made her cover her eyes as I led her across the yard and placed her in front of the garden.

“Okay, now open!” she removed her hands and gasped in awe. She clasped her hands to her chest and turned to me with a smiled that it up her whole face. She opened her arms to me and I launched myself into her embrace. It would be a few more years before I looked back and realized how exaggerated her reaction really was. And how now matter what I did there was no way for mom to have not figured out what I was doing in the backyard.

I never told what I realized. She loved how happy I was that I had been able to surprise her. And I loved how that made her happy. To this day the prayer garden was the best surprise either of us had given or received.