I had a visitor on Wednesday.
LAURIE!
She drove to see me with her brand new baby in tow, and I got to hold him and accidentally make him cry! We got so wrapped up in conversation and Irish soda bread that I didn’t notice my kids were jumping on the bed.
I mean, I remembered that my daughter had taken a GLASS bowl full of yogurt into her room to munch on, and though I don’t usually allow food in bedrooms, I did yesterday on account of it gave me more time with Laurie… (I’m sorry. I think somewhere in that sentence, I lost all sense of structure). My daughter, crazy kiddo that she is, jumped on her bed and THREW the glass bowl against the wall.
Because… she inherited her father’s insatiable curiosity for breaking things. Seriously. When we were looking at engagement rings, he came across one where the diamond seemed to float freely between to prongs, and he said, “I just want to take a mini hammer and whack it outta there!” I still married him completely ignorant to the fact that he would spawn more like him.
Rewind:
When I was in High School, I asked “Santa” for a CTR ring one Christmas. That was all I wanted, and the one I wanted most was only $10. My Dad, er… SANTA took one look at it and decided against it. Anyway, it didn’t matter. Not a single LDS store had that style in stock. Santa picked one out for me. I don’t think I’ve ever told you, but my Santa has impeccable style. From his taste in cologne to his pristine Western Wear and Tony Lama Boots, he always looks classy.
It came as no surprise that my ring was just as beautiful. It was gold -real gold -and the CTR was written in a heart. I wore that ring everywhere! I still do, in fact. It sits on my right hand ring finger and reminds me not to say THAT and not to EAT THAT and to always, always, say my prayers.
One night for Family Home Evening, we were trying to explain meaningful prayer to Lacy. We’ve done this in the past, but she’s four. She doesn’t rightly remember everything. Her prayers always have been of the utmost sincerity (who blesses the comic book store? Lacy does!), but during the lesson we emphasized that Heavenly Father will answer our prayers. I went on to tell Lacy about the time her Daddy lost a snake. He was so sad, but he prayed to find it and before he could even complete his prayer, he heard his mother scream from her bathroom. The snake was in the tub!
The story didn’t go over well.
“Snakes are in the TUB?!” She asked, horrified.
Okay, okay… I tired to regroup with something a little nicer. Glancing down at my hand, I saw my ring.
“See this?” I held my ring out for her to see. I went on to tell her the story about how Grandpa had bought the ring for me. I told her I loved it very much and wore it all the time. One day, I lost it. I was so sad. I looked for it everywhere. At that point in the story, she was transfixed. Her eyes were BIG and sympathetic. A lost RING! The horror! The sadness! THIS she could understand! I told her that I prayed everyday to find the ring, and one day it fell out of my laundry basket -right into my line of view. I hastily put it on and knelt down right there to thank Heavenly Father for helping me find my ring.
Lacy looked at my ring again.
“It has a C and a T and a R,” she said. Then she perked up.
“Hey! I have a ring like that! My green ring! But I lost it…” The gears in her head started turning, “I could PRAY about it!”
Yes it was true. I had given her a tiny CTR ring a couple years ago, and instead of saying CTR it said HLJ or something like that. It was the spanish version. Please don’t ask me where I got a spanish ring. I really can’t remember. Anyway, she loved that ring. And she HAD lost it. Long, long, long ago she had lost it. I mean that ring was LONG LONG LONG gone. I imagined it was sitting buried in a few inches of sand in some playground somewhere. But as Lacy said the closing prayer for Family Home Evening, she prayed to find her ring. After the prayer was over, I pulled her close and told her that I would get her another green ring because her old one was very lost. She hugged me and bopped off to bed.
Well remember how she threw a glass bowl against the wall?
While I was thoroughly cleaning glass shards from hard-to-reach places, I spotted something on the ground. I nearly vacuumed it up, but as a leaned closer I saw:
That blasted missing-for-a-year ring. It was tucked tightly in the very corner of her room under her bed -a place I had looked before, but not for the ring.
I sat down and marveled for a moment.
Then I chastised myself.
Then I gave it to the happiest girl in the world, who believed all along that she WOULD find her ring. When I gave it to her, I told her that she should thank Heavenly Father for helping her find it.
“…thank thee for this day. Thank thee for Heavenly Father could find my ring. I love him so much, Amen.”
Ah, kiddo.
You have so much to teach me.
