We take a lot of trips to South Carolina as a family. Rick and I both lived in Charleston in the course of our Navy adventures and we love the Lowcountry.
Right now Will's future plans include moving to Charleston (Soren was invited to move with him, but I was not) and open a ferry boat business in Charleston Harbor, shuttling tourists where they want to go. He also wants to live on the beach, so I hope that ferry business is a successful one.
The last time we were in Charleston was this past August and while we were out taking one of our many leisurely strolls with Mr. Dog, we started to notice these cute little sago palm trees everywhere. Will started calling them pineapple palm trees- and they do look like little pineapples planted in the ground with palm fronds sticking out of the top- and asked if we could get one to take home.
At that point, it was difficult for Rick to venture far from the beach house so we didn't get a chance to shop for a souvenir palm tree. After we got back to Ohio, Will diligently checked the garden section at Lowe's every time we were there to see if they had any... but this is Ohio, after all. No luck.
Rick died on what would have been the boys' second day of school. Obviously I had not sent them. They were reluctant to be away from Rick at all in those last few days. But when they were finally ready to go, I had not yet returned to work so I was taking them and picking them up from school. In the afternoon, my routine was to park a street over from the school and walk to the dismissal area, then walk them back to the car.
One afternoon, on maybe the third or fourth day back at school, I parked the car as usual, walked the usual route through the neighborhood and met the boys at school. The three of us then walked back to the car the same way I had just come, but now on the sidewalk in front of one the houses sat a little sago palm in a pot next to a sign that said
'FREE PALM TREE'.
I absolutely could not believe my eyes.
We all knew right away and Soren said,
"It's a gift from Daddy!"
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