Priceless

Wishing John and I were in Spartanburg, snowed in with Mama, I write this from sunny (well, overcast) FL.  Spartanburg is covered in 7+ inches of snow and ice right now, with a possibility of more to come.  Yesterday, George picked Mama up in his truck (even though they live across the street from each other) and ran a few errands in the snow.  George called Memommie and talked to her for quite some time, up until the point where he and Mama pulled into Memommie’s driveway and rang her doorbell.  She told George that someone was at her door, not knowing it was them.  She tried to look out the window but couldn’t see a car because he had pulled so far into her driveway.  Then she looked out the window to see if she could see anyone at the door, but they were standing in a spot, trying to hide from her view.  She opened the door and was shocked to see 2 of her children standing there.  When I talked to her Sunday night, she DID NOT want it to snow.  She was scheduled to go to the oldies’ luncheon at church today, the Shepherd’s Center tomorrow, and to get her hair “coiffed” on Friday.  She did not want anything ruining her weekly plans.  Anyway, when I talked to her last night, I already knew what Mama and George had done, but I let her tell me the entire story as if I was hearing it for the first time.  Because of the snow, she knew she wouldn’t be seeing any of her family yesterday, so she was so excited and pleasantly surprised to see them.

This reminds of Christmas 2007, which was actually a pretty terrible time.  I went home to be with my family, and John was scheduled to fly in for a few days.  We broke up, however, the night I drove in.  Needless to say, he didn’t come for a visit, and I spent most of my time there in a very very terrible horrible bad mood.  However, I do remember Christmas Eve, and it was the most I laughed during that trip to SC.  We went to my aunt Marlene’s house that evening, and then Courtney, Tony, Anna, Caroline, Camille, Vivian, and I all loaded up in the Quillen mini-van to go to Hollywild.  The line was so ridiculously long that we broke out of it about 45 minutes into it.  People were honking their horns and getting angry, thinking we were breaking in line, when we were actually just trying to leave.  Not ready to go home, we decided to go Christmas caroling at Memommie’s house, something we’ve never done before.  We knew she would be super surprised and get a huge kick out of it.  Sure enough, the look on her face when we opened the door and started singing was priceless, absolutely priceless.  That woman is priceless.  Our family is priceless.  I am beyond grateful.