I can't wait to tell you this story.Friday afternoon, on the way home from school with the kids, I got some cash from the bank. Specifically, I got $500, all in fifty dollar bills. Knowing that I would be working at the school fish fry a few hours later (Now I know I am officially a true Wisconsin mom, but that's another story!), I carefully put $50 in my wallet, $100 in my zippered coat pocket to give to Bill for grocery shopping (grocery shopping for me=true love!), and resolved to be sure to put the remaining $350 safely away at home so that it would not be in my purse or in my car during the fish fry.
Fast forward to Saturday afternoon.
The $350 is nowhere to be found, and I have no further memory of doing anything with it. ("Senior Moment!"--there, I said it, so you can just resist that little jab right now!)
It was not in my coat pocket, not in my car, not in our usual "cash stash" spot in the house, not in my desk, not in my pile of clutter in the dining room, not in the trash, not in my dresser, not in my bathroom vanity, and not in any of the other 10,000 places I frantically searched in my house.
Did I forget to take it out of my purse, so that someone stole it when I left my purse unattended in the fish fry break room? (Quote from WWD, God love him: "But Mom, it couldn't have been stolen; everyone there was Catholic.")
Did I scoop it up with the junk mail and toss it? Did I leave it sitting in my lap and drop it when getting out of the car? Did I ("oh please...") absentmindedly just put it somewhere strange in the house?
And it wasn't just a little money, either. Three hundred and fifty dollars!! The kids and I searched and searched, and prayed and prayed to St. Anthony, who is, of course, the patron saint of lost objects. The worst part, naturally, was telling Bill. All I could think about was how long it takes him to earn $350 at the job that he loathes, and how carefully he watches his money. $350.00. Oh my.
I went to sleep last night praying that I'd wake up with a clear mind and remember where I put the money. Instead I woke up with that sick feeling of losing $350. All day long it didn't turn up.
Just now, after watching the Saints beat his beloved Brett Favre for the NFC Championship, WWD went to bed and came running back downstairs yelling, "Mom! Mom! I found it! I found it!"
I knew exactly what "it" was, of course.
Friday night when we were rushing to get out the door on time for the fish fry, I'd helped William search his closet for the specific shirt he wanted to wear. And, since I was on my way to my room to put the money away at the time, in order to look for his shirt, I'd set down the money envelope on a shelf in his closet.
The shelf where he keeps his prayer stuff.
And the envelope--no kidding--was sitting right in front of a holy card of St. Anthony.
What's that saying...
"Don't believe in miracles; depend on them."Indeed.
