A few weeks ago, IronMan turned... ahem... forty-five. With all of the changes our family has been through, and a lot of the struggles, too, last winter, IronMan took on a part-time job at Home Depot to help fill in some gaps. It just so happened that this birthday was the very first birthday since I have known him that he had to work, and it also happened to be quite a long shift. I wanted to try to make his birthday extra special and have everything done ahead of time, so when he walked in at 9:45 p.m. from work, he could relax, and we could immediately spoil him.
The first matter of birthday planning is usually the cake. Our oven wasn't working at the time, so I decided to make an ice cream cake. To make it extra special, I wanted to make it from scratch. IronMan loves mint-chocolate, so I thought a grasshopper ice cream cake would be perfect. I checked the cupboard for the needed ingredients and headed to the store for the fill-ins. I went to three different stores, and couldn't find the needed creme de cacao, so I decided we would have to make the cake without it. The clock was sufficiently dissolving my minutes away into some unknown twilight zone, and I was now in super-fast-mom-go-mode. When I arrived at home, I made the slightly messy, slightly complicated crust for the ice cream cake. Perfect! I put it in the freezer and quickly got to work on the filling. The recipe called for 2 tablespoons of creme de menthe. I should have listened to my gut, but I'd never made this recipe before. I checked, double checked, triple checked and quadruple checked the recipe. Even though it seemed like way too much, I trusted the web, and in went the 2 full tablespoons. I taste tested the filling, and let me tell you, I think my tongue is still burning. It was the potency of Five Brand Rain gum times a hundred.
HOOOOOEY! Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Sigh. Into the garbage and on to plan B. I headed back to the store with young IronMan in search of mint cookie ice cream to go with the perfect crust that was chilling in the freezer. Of course, the store didn't have any type of cookie ice cream in stock, so plan C, and I grabbed mint chip. Rushing past the produce to get to the checkout, Young IronMan asked if we could please get a watermelon, so we grabbed one. I safely nested the watermelon in a blanket in the back of our Durango, and prayed the ice cream wouldn't melt while we stopped at the dollar store to pick up balloons.
The first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and
SEVENTH balloon choices I wanted were out of stock. Ugh. Finally, my son said, "Mom, just get the monkey one." A monkey balloon? Good grief. We needed to get home, so I hesitantly asked the attendant to prepare a monkey balloon, and young IronMan and I hurried to the checkout line. There were two customers ahead of us. The first was a well-put-together lady, probably in her mid-sixties. She had pretty, silver-gray hair, nicely done make-up, and a beautiful, turquoise-blue silk shirt on. The lady directly in front of us was nearly her same age, but opposite. She had long, scraggly, half-bleached hair, a mismatched outfit, and a ragged handbag. The first lady had a cart completely full of items: crossword puzzle books, yellow silk flowers, magazines, a small get well balloon etc. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Wouldn't you know it? The first lady decided to pay her total bill, $37.45, (Yes, she had thirty-five items in her cart) with piles of nickels, dimes, and quarters. She poured her change out on the counter and began to count out one-dollar piles of change. Right up to this very moment in time, with the exception of the perfect crust waiting in the freezer, my day was frittered away by frustration after frustration, and I really needed to get home to finish my birthday preparations.
BUT I would quickly find out that I was exactly where I needed to be. Had the day not clunked around earlier...
I WOULD HAVE MISSED THE BEAUTIFUL THAT GOD WANTED ME TO WITNESS.
I WAS IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME.
The pretty, silver-haired lady counted out twenty-seven dollar-piles of coins. She looked at the cashier and asked, "What was my total bill, again?" She was out of coins. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. She looked at the items in her cart and wilted. She started to look through bags, and was having a hard time deciding what to put back. She somberly told the cashier, "I can't put anything back. I am going to have to go home and get more money to pay for my bill. Can you hold my order?" The ragamuffin lady directly in front of me shifted on her feet. She looked at the cashier and quietly asked what the silver-haired lady's total bill was. She pulled her checkbook from her tattered bag, and started to write out a check for the total amount. Distraught, the silver-haired lady was already leaving the store. The cashier ran to get her to tell her that she could collect her bags, and her piles of change. Her entire purchase had been paid for. The silver-haired lady came back with tears streaming down her cheeks. She told the ragamuffin lady in front of me that the items were for her son. He was in stage four cancer and only had a few weeks to live. She wanted to bring him some sunshine. I imagined those yellow silk flowers in a sweet vase cheering the room where her son stayed. I imagined him sitting up in a hospital bed propped with pillows with his mother beside him talking through crossword puzzle clues and looking at magazines together. I imagined the get-well balloon beside him offering hope that wouldn't exactly come, and a mother's breaking heart while trying to keep a smile on her face for her son's sake during his last days. Suddenly, my clock stopped ticking and reminding me that I had to hurry. The tick-tock was silent. As I pulled out of the Dollar Tree parking lot, Silver-haired Lady and Ragamuffin Lady were exchanging phone numbers and hugging. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I know I was allowed to witness something just a little bit holy.
WHEN YOU PAY IT FORWARD, YOU MIGHT BE BLESSING MORE PEOPLE THAN YOU ORIGINALLY INTENDED TO BLESS.
When we pulled in the driveway, young IronMan opened the tailgate of our vehicle. The watermelon had freed itself from its blanket nest and fell splat on our driveway. I couldn't help but laugh. My son said it was an awesome experience. ;-)
I salvaged the half of the watermelon that didn't land face down on the concrete. When I got into the house, the meat I was going to grill wasn't even partly thawed. It seemed like everything that I had hoped to do was sabotaged, but somehow it didn't matter quite as much as it did earlier in the day.
A LITTLE BIT OF HOLY CHANGES YOUR PERSPECTIVE.
Despite the earlier frustrations of the day and expectations dashed, I did the best I could do to be ready to celebrate IronMan's birthday. Instead of being frazzled, our atmosphere was peace. We were here. We were surrounded by the gifts that mean the most. We had all of our family around us, plus two more special souls. The decorations got put up (even the monkey balloon was okay), the ice cream cake was fabulous, and dinner was a little bit later than the 9:30 p.m. I was aiming for, but really, what more could we ask for? The tick-tock was hushed and it doesn't matter what time you celebrate. The point is that you
DO celebrate. IronMan turned forty-five, and we celebrated him. A mother across town won't get another birthday with her son, and a lady who sacrificed to pay it forward gained a new friend. Yes, friends, a little bit of holy, indeed, changes your perspective.
SOMETIMES...IT CHANGES EVERYTHING
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