This past Christmas was quite a holiday at our house... I had been moping around, getting more and more worked up because this was going to be my first holiday without both children at home, and I wasn't dealing with it very well. Tim (my oldest) had recently graduated from ASU with a double major in Finance and in Accounting, and had started his first "career job" with KPMG in Denver this past November. So there was no way he could come home so soon after starting a job, and there was no way I could leave my husband and daughter to go out there for Christmas; so I pouted, cried, moped around the house, and said bad things about the holidays in general.
On Thursday night, December 23rd, I came home from a twelve hour shift in the ER tired and crabby and in a hurry to eat dinner and get to bed so I could turn around and work another twelve hour shift the next day. And trust me, I crabbed about this, too! I mean, really, who would want to work two twelve hour shifts the last two days before Christmas?!? (Never mind that I had Christmas day off and the following three days after that, and I'd had four days off before the two shifts on the 23rd and 24th! Talk about an ingrate!)
I came in the house with a pizza from our favorite, Buddy's, set down the pizza, and said I needed to use the restroom. My husband greeted me and said "Good! I wanted to show you something I did in the hallway!" (We've been restoring our house for more than a year now, which means there's always something in the works, so this was pretty typical). I walked into the living room and THERE WAS MY SON TIMMY!!!
He'd come home for Christmas with the help of my husband John, my ex-husband (Tim's dad) Rick, Tim's girlfriend Cait and her mom Shirley, and had been in the works since Thanksgiving. It was a group effort to surprise me and I've never screamed so loudly or cried quite so hard as I did on that Thursday night.
All this is leading up to my gift to Tim and Cait, for their new apartment in Denver... it is a collage I showed here quite a while ago, that I had framed professionally, and once I did that, I regretted offering to give it to the kids!
It's not the best photo of the collage, but it's hard to shoot a photo and not get the flash in the way, which I did here, sorry! Here's a scan of the collage before it was mounted and framed:
The framing is stellar and I have to thank my friend Jacqueline Sullivan for it. Not only is Jacqueline a fabulous calligrapher but she is also a professional framer, and her work is just gorgeous. I took the collage to Jacqueline in September or early October and said "Do your magic!", which is exactly what she did! Tim and Cait love the collage and I'm thrilled that they do, and delighted to have been able to give them something so personal for their first home together.
Awwww. I love this story!
Posted by: Jan Hurst - letterlady | April 02, 2011 at 11:48 PM
What a fantastic and meaningful Christmas present. The perfect way to end a year for sure!!
Posted by: Seth | January 12, 2011 at 11:13 PM
Oh I am so excited you got to see your son, what an amazing surprise!! The collage piece is A M A Z I N G!! I am such a fan of yours Kathy, even more now that I know you are a nurse, I really believe you nurses are angels dressed in scrubs. ***hugging you*** so happy to call you friend... You must be so proud of your son!!
xx Rena
Posted by: Rena Askey | January 11, 2011 at 06:35 PM
Yay! I loved reading this. The story: heartwarming; the collage: awesome (of course - *you* did it!); the framing: perfect!
I hope you had a wonderful time with your family. Happy New Year Kathy!
Posted by: Janefarr.blogspot.com | January 11, 2011 at 04:59 PM