SURPRISE

PACKAGE IT WITH LOVE

          “I’ll just order the cake and...” Mom’s voice halted as I walked into the kitchen where she and Deryl were eating breakfast.

          I smiled to myself and thought that Mom must be planning a party for my birthday.  On the twenty ninth of December, I would be twelve years old.

          Later in the day, we drove to Farmington.  It was Saturday and the business district was busy. Mom and I were walking down the sidewalk, between shops, when we met JoAnne, a girl from my class.

          “I need to ask you something, Jo Anne,” Mom said as she pulled the girl to one side, where I couldn’t hear.

          I stood in the middle of the sidewalk as pedestrians passed by.

Mom came back to my side.  Joanne waved and walked away.

          “Mom, are you planning a surprise party for me?” I asked with a big smile.

          Mom was livid!  “How can you ask me that?  Why do you think everything is for you?  You are always so selfish! I am having a New Years Eve party for Deryl!”

          The smile was gone.  Inside, I felt grieved, and emotionally another wall went up between Mom and I.  I shut down on her.  If the party was for Deryl then why wasn’t I involved in the planning?  Why would she involve my friends, and not me?

          On the day of my birthday, I walked into a house full of young people from my class.

          “Surprise!”

          Mom was all smiles and happy.  She had pulled off the perfect “surprise!”

          I enjoyed the party.  But I decided surprises should only come in packages of love!

                                                      THE GALA EVENT

          I stroked the yellow striped kitten as it lay on my bed.  “Kitty” was the ingenious name I had selected for the small ball of fur.  I had brought her home from a neighbor’s house, begging Mom to let me keep her.  I was thrilled when Mom consented.

          “Come here Kitty,” I said tenderly as I pulled her into my arms.  Her fur was soft as I held her close. Her purring rewarded my attention.

          Kitty and I spent most of our time together when I wasn’t in school.  There was only one other girl my age in our neighborhood.  She came from a well to do family and she was my friend...well...on our block she was my friend.  At school she acted like she was too good for me.  I quess I would have to say...she was a snob!  One day, a few months earlier, as we walked along the sidewalk between our houses, Claudia announced to me,

          “I’m going to have a party!  Mother says I can invite twenty kids,” she bragged.

          I waited for my invitation. Claudia continued...

          “I’d like to invite you Gloria, but I have the list made up and there are already twenty on it.”

          Well so much for that, I thought.

          With sudden inspiration, Claudia said, “You can help me with the party if you want to.”

          Claudia and I planned the party.  We addressed invitations, and she was right, there were twenty names, and mine wasn’t one of them.

          For party favors, we bought tiny plastic animals at the local Dime Store.  We glued the feet onto colored cardboard bases.  Across the bottom of each base we wrote the name of the guest who would be attending.

          I didn’t tell Mom and Grandma about the party because they would have wondered why I wasn’t invited, and they wouldn’t have approved of my helping under the circumstances.

          The day before the event, Claudia was behaving strangely.

          “Gloria, I’ve been thinking...huh,” Claudia began sheepishly, “You’ve been so much help...well...I mean...would you like to come tomorrow night?”

          I was so excited!  I ran home to tell Mom and Grandma I was invited to a party!  Bless Mom’s heart, because it was my first “gala event”, she took me to the store in Belen and bought me a new skirt and blouse for the occasion.  She never knew that I had worked all week and was the last person to be invited.

          On Friday night, I wore my new clothes and socialized with the other guests on Claudia’s large patio.  Blue and gold party lanterns swayed in the evening breeze above the laughter and chatter of the young people.  In my hand, pressed against the waist of my navy, cotton skirt, was the party favor Claudia had given me.  I opened my fingers and looked at the tiny plastic kitten on the pink cardboard base.  “Gloria” was written across the bottom in Claudia’s handwriting.