The Gift
"What
are you making?" I had just walked
up to the workshop for DI to find John at the table in the center of the
room. He had a square board in front of
him, measuring it.
"It's
a surprise." John said, inviting me
to stop asking questions with his body language.
Later
that day, and the weeks after, he pulled each of the kids aside between working
on props and instant challenges. They
measured boards, cut them, and screwed them together in square fashion.
"What
are you doing?"
"Nothing."
Curious...
Hannah
rushed out of the car to where Cole was already jumping on to the bright yellow
sled.
I
looked around for John, and decided to walk to the workshop to prepare for the
day. Slosh! I heard him inside the barn, mixing a
wheelbarrow of cement with a shovel.
"Oh,
there you are. What are you
doing?" I crinkled my nose at the
muddy mix.
"It's
a surprise. The kids are going to
help." I laughed, getting used to
the line, and thinking about the frame that looked like an aerobic step the
children and John had created the last few weeks.
Upstairs,
we were slow to start, with plenty to do.
John flipped the "aerobic step" over and brought up buckets of
concrete to dump in the frame. I worked
with the kids to go through their lines, and he randomly pulled a child over to
float the concrete.
"O.K.,
you can know now!" John pushed his
hands deep into his pockets and invited me over with a sheepish grin. "It's a septic lid cover. The kids will put their hands and names in it
for you."
Now,
this is probably strange, but this gift touched my heart. A "series of unfortunate events"
had recently culminated in the need for a new septic and leach system at our
house. This gift would serve both
functionally and sentimentally to mark the year, both of the troubles of adult
living and the relief and joy of working and playing with this creative group
of children and my friend and co manager, John.