Bold Moves Are the Best Moves

In today’s digital age of instant gratification, there aren’t a lot of surprises anymore. The younger generations will never know the excitement of checking the mailbox to find an unexpected handwritten letter or opening a package of developed photos to relive vacation memories (and often finding half the family’s heads were cut off in the pic.)  Last weekend, I was able to pull off a surprise for a college friend that reminded me just how much one can mean to someone.

A few of my sorority sisters have tried to get together once a year for the last thirty. We haven’t lived in the same city since graduation, so years like the pandemic have made it difficult. Others have included weddings and University of Kansas sporting events that allowed us to see each other multiple times in the same year.

The last wedding celebration for one of us was 8 years ago in Charleston, SC. She and I were the last two that remained single into our 40s, so we never missed an annual trip and had a few wild excursions all on our own. As weddings go, we didn’t get to spend a lot of time with the bride that weekend, but the rest of us had so much fun and always talk about revisiting the charming city.

We’re at various stages in life where kids’ activities, parents’ health, and work responsibilities always seem to get in the way. Her life has been especially stressful the last couple of years, so whenever we talk, she ends the conversation with, “We need to find a time for y’all to visit again,” but we just never set a date.

After one of those calls, I talked to our friend in Chicago about it. We decided it was easier for just the two of us to set a date and plan it without her knowing. Although we knew she’d be happy for us to visit, we didn’t want to add more stress with all the planning that comes with houseguests – cleaning, shopping, and working overtime just to take a break. We brought her mom in on the surprise to make sure we weren’t overstepping and to have her poke around for any big plans that weekend.

The week before, her mom suggested we loop her husband in on the scheme. We were prepared to cancel the plans knowing he had even more going on at the time. Not only was he on board, but he wanted to coordinate how it would go down.

He picked us up at the airport and let us have his car while he went back to work. We had a fabulous lunch on the water then went shopping for food provisions and plenty of wine before he left work. We hid in their garage, giggling like little kids playing hide-n-seek, while he went inside and told her he needed help carrying something from the car.

She walked out unsuspectingly, dressed in her “work from home Friday with no video calls” attire, when we jumped from behind the car screaming, “Surprise,” like we were jumping out of a cake in old movies. Her face went from confusion, to shock, to elation, to unconsolable tears within seconds. All the stress and emotions that had been building were all released with those tears. I have a video of the moment that would bring you to tears also, but we’re going to keep it among us as a treasured memory (and protect all ugly crying faces.)

The rest of the weekend was perfect, spent mostly in her home reminiscing, catching up and consuming all that wine. We did make it to the beach one day and met some 20-something women that were in admiration of our stories of friendship and how we pulled off the surprise.

I encourage each of you to create your own surprise and record it. You will not regret it. It’s a fantastic way to fill someone’s bucket. It sure did all of ours.