Searching for a Four Leaf Clover

Several years ago, my dad gave me my mother's wedding rings. I was honored to have them and vowed to take very good care of them. My fingers are a bit smaller than my mom's, but I thought the rings were secure on my finger. Not long after I got the rings, I went to a picnic and was playing volleyball on a grass court. When I went to hit the ball and make a heroic save, the engagement diamond ring flew off my finger. The volleyball game was halted so I could search for the ring. Several people helped me look for the ring in the grass, but they gave up after 15 minutes or so. I told my husband that I wasn't going home until I found my mom's diamond ring. My eyes kept welling up with tears, making it hard for me to see. I said a prayer in my heart that somehow I would be able to find the ring. As I was on my hands and knees in the grass, a boy I always considered to be a doofus approached me and asked if I was looking for 4 leaf clovers. I looked up at him with my teary eyes and smeared makeup. I felt like saying sarcastically, "Does it look like I'm looking for a 4 leaf clover?" , but I restrained myself from making such snippy retort. I patiently explained that I had lost a diamond ring while I was playing volleyball on the grass. He asked what the ring looked like and I described it. He immediately bent down, and picked up something in the grass. He held my mom's ring in his fingers and asked, "A diamond ring like this?" Sometimes God answers my prayers in the most unexpected ways. I could not see because I had a "beam" in my eye while someone less judgmental than I had the clear vision it took to find a diamond in the grass.

Daffodil Memories

Daffodils.....by William Wordsworth I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. Daffodils always remind me of my mother and her birthday in March. Daffodils were Mom's favorite flower. When she was sick in the hospital in the spring of my 9th year, I brought a bouquet of daffodils I picked from our yard when I was able to visit Mom. We were able to go out on the hospital grounds and have a picnic. Mom was quiet and subdued, but the daffodils made her give us a Mona Lisa smile. Mom was big on Easter finery. My brother Al and I would get all dressed up for Easter - he in a suit and me in a frilly dress, white gloves, and a little hat. Dad got out the movie camera and Al & I would swoon over each other, over-acting like we were in a silent romance movie. Mom had a great fashion sense and had the body of a model. She could wear knit pants in a horizontal stripe and still look great. One Easter she wore totally black and white when most women were wearing their spring pastels. That year Mom had a new white hat with a wide brim. When we went outside, the wind gusted and blew her hat off. It looked like a white pie pan rolling down the street. By the time she caught up to it, the brim was soiled and she wouldn't wear it. It ruined her ensemble, but Al and I thought her hat rolling down the street was great fun.