Surprises

My mother’s 75th birthday is coming up at the end of this month. I have been working hard on creating a surprise gift for her. There is a place where you can have people call in and record messages, then the company will burn it onto a CD, put it in a nice case and send it to me. Then I can wrap it up in pretty paper and give it to her.

First of all, tracking down people from her life is damn near impossible. I snuck into her apartment and snagged her address book and mailed out a bunch of letters. Then I snuck into her email account and facebook and emailed all of those people. Then I bought a month long account on people finders to try to track down other people. I contacted, numerous times, a lady from her job at the university to see if any alumni would be up for participating. Then I hunted down email addresses from old professors that worked at the university when she was there. I have contacted family to get them to jump in. What a freaking pile of crap work this has been!!! People procrastinate, don’t reply, and just plain don’t get it. I have a certain timeline to work with, obviously. If the email or letter does not get returned to sender, I am assuming that at least a handful of them have reached the correct person. Some of the people I have heard back from have drug their feet to the point of insanity. I pushed the deadline back another day and got one more message. I’m not saying that I haven’t gathered a lot of messages because I have. But some of the people I contacted I expected more from than just ignoring the experience all together. My aunts and cousins have been some of the worst!!! I do try to give the benefit of the doubt, but seriously.

Well, here we are on the last day. I could possibly squeeze one more in but then I have to get it finished up in order for it to be here in time.

One of the messages was from my nephew, Shane. I know you all have heard about Shane. The last time I saw him he was about 11, maybe 12. He’s now 21. Maybe even 22. I’ve lost count. It’s been this long because my brother stopped all communication with me. I have just recently regained contact with my nephew via facebook. We have emailed now and then. He’s a gorgeous young man now. He’s in college. He goes on trips to surf and climb and kayak and snorkel. He drinks with his buddies. Wow how the time has flown by.

In his message to my mother, he said how much he missed us, how he remembered coming over to our house every Saturday. How he would love to see us all again. I bawled. I didn’t cry or weep or shed a tear. I bawled. Before the message was even half over the tears were just flooding my face. I couldn’t believe it, it surprised me. I felt a little dumb for being such an emotional freak. Jason held me and let me cry on his shoulder. I kept trying to gather myself together but it took a while. Longer than I would ever imagine.

I blame my mother for this mess. My brother is a jackass without a doubt, but my mother started this ball rolling. She created this situation that put all of us on different sides of the country. Her decisions have split our family apart. And yet, here I sit this morning, once again trying to get people to hurry up and record their sweet birthday wishes to my mother. I live in such a screwed up inner universe.

I wrote to my nephew and told him that I cried, that I miss him, that I want to see him. I told him I would buy a plane ticket for him to come out if he is willing. (I’ll stick it on a credit card or something.) He said he didn’t want me to buy a ticket but that he would like to come out to visit. I didn’t think he was serious. He said he didn’t have any vacation time right now and school was starting soon. I pushed it a little. I told him that he had to have at least a two day chunk of time that he could spare for a short visit, something quick is better than nothing at all. He said he would check. I woke up this morning to an email from Shane. He gave me dates and asked me if they worked for us. He asked if a morning or evening flight was best. He is serious! He’s going to come!!!! He’s thinking the second week of September!!! I answered his email and am now just waiting for his next response.

I don’t want my mother to know. I want to surprise her. I am just full of surprises for someone who seems to be the downfall of my existence. At least this one I have a huge benefit from as well.