My parent’s celebrated their 40th anniversary last
Saturday. 40 years! That is seriously amazing. But if you know my parents and the love they
have for God, each other and our family, it’s easy to see why they’ve been
together for forty years.
My sisters and I started talking about doing something to
celebrate back in May. We thought about
taking the whole family on a vacation, even just for an extended weekend. My dad doesn’t really like to travel much
and especially to unfamiliar territory.
We thought we could convince him to do a long weekend at Clearwater Lake
in Peidmont, MO. We’ve been to the
resort before and he is very familiar with the area. We put the numbers together, looked at the
calendar and then talked to my parents.
They were not interested. I couldn’t
say that I blame them. A long weekend
with 11 kids didn’t sound that appealing to me either. But now we were back to the drawing board, so
to speak.
A few weeks later, my sister, Laura, and I were at the block party
with my parents. My dad was up dancing
in the streets with the kids and really just having a great time! My mom leaned
over and said, “You want to know what we want for our anniversary?”
Laura and I looked at each other and were like, “Please do tell!”
“We would like a nice dinner with just our family and for all our
kids to put on a play for us.”
The first thought in my head, and I’m not even kidding, was “Are
you F**** kidding me!!!!!”
But she seemed really excited about the idea and since it was
their celebration, I figured we could pull it off.
And we did!
For over two months, this play and songs and actions have been
running through my head. I even took a
day off work just so I could get the ideas out of my head and onto paper. On that day, I took a walk around my
neighborhood, passing by our parish Church.
I stopped and reflected on the garden area at the Church. I asked for some divine inspiration.
Once home, I fired up the laptop and started writing. The words that came were not my own. And this play was turning into something even
more incredible than I first imagined. I
called my sisters over that afternoon so that we could run through what I
had. We drank a few beers, laughed,
cried and determined this was exactly the direction the play should go.
Bev and Laura were instrumental in turning this vision (that I’m
convinced came from above) into a reality.
They also spearheaded the dinner and decorations. We got together several times during the week
prior to the anniversary party. We held
several dress rehearsals with a wide range of what kids could and couldn’t be
in attendance. We streamlined, critiqued
and created the perfect play.
There is no way we could have pulled this off without the Lord’s
help and inspiration.
The evening was fantastic! And more importantly, my parents loved it!
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