I already had plans for spring break. I was going to sleep in till 7 every day (as I get older, believe it or not, 7 is late!), reorganize the medicine cabinet and all the miscellaneous cards in my nightstand, and spend mornings with the girls, then give Bruce a break each day by taking both Mythili and Isabella to school since their spring break is a week later than mine. While they might not have been the most exciting plans of my life, I was still looking forward to a week without school, relaxing, maybe even being able to finish a book or two in the meantime.
Those were my plans before Monday morning. First of all, when I went to bed on Sunday night, my alarm clock’s numbers were flashing and the time was wrong. Probably one of the kids had unplugged it. I hurriedly reset the time and set my alarm… not paying attention to the fact that I set it for 10:30 am instead of pm. So, at 7:08 on Monday morning, I jolted out of bed, realizing it was light out and I had to be at work in 12 minutes. Oops. I called the school and told them I’d be late, hopped in the shower, and rushed upstairs to wolf down my daily oatmeal and applesauce.
Then I opened my computer so that I could pull up the lesson plan for the class I’d be teaching in, oh, 30 minutes. Bruce had placed a card in between the keyboard and the closed monitor. I couldn’t for the life of me imagine why, as it wasn’t my birthday and we hadn’t had a fight (:)). I curiously opened the card and read a rhyming note that told me I needed to pack my bags, I’d be leaving Sunday, that I’d be going to the beach, and visiting my family. At the end he told me to check my email to find out where. All I was thinking, as I started up the computer, was that I had some family in Rhode Island, but that beach would suck this time of year, and my family in San Diego and Florida is so distant that Bruce wouldn’t even know about them. So when I finally got my computer started and saw the email from Bruce with the forwarded itinerary for a trip to HAWAII, tears stung my eyes and I started screaming, and there was Bruce, hiding out on the sofa to see my reaction!! I had totally forgotten that my cousin Hannah moved to Maui last fall! “You’re sending me to Hawaii?!!” I was jumping up and down, hugging Bruce, so overwhelmed that I didn’t know what to say except, “Hannah knows I’m coming, right?”
Of course. He’d arranged the whole thing, first “friending” Hannah on Facebook, then asking her if it’d be all right for me to visit, then scouring the Internet for the best tickets, even arranging for Heather to watch the girls on the two nights he has class. For the first time in our almost-eleven-year marriage, I was totally, completely surprised and shocked! The girls crept out of their rooms about then, slinking down the stairs in their usual early-morning manner, and I asked them if they thought it would be OK for me to go to Hawaii without them for five days. “We’ll miss you a lot, but you can buy us something,” Isabella replied.
I cried the whole way to work, I was so overcome with emotion. I always knew he was the best husband ever, the best person I have ever even known, but this act of kindness surpasses even his spousal supremacy. And as if it wasn’t enough that he did it, I got to go to work and brag to all my colleagues about what an amazing gift-giver Bruce is. One of my co-worker’s wives just wrote to me on Facebook, “Jay told me about your trip. I hope it inspires him.” That brings a grin as wide as my eyes to my face. Bruce inspires me every day to be a kinder, more giving, more loving person–maybe his kindness extends beyond the warmth of our home.
So… I guess I might add to this blog next week, my toes in the sand, my sun hat on, and my husband and girls in my heart, from the beautiful, glorious island of Maui. Aloha!
