Buried Treasure

I don't know whose bright idea it was to dig a hole to China in my backyard. I was maybe six years old at the time, and the result of that inspiration was four or five little girls sitting in the back corner of my yard armed with silver spoons and determination.

Somewhere along the line, as days of work yielded a hole about one inch deep, we changed our goal. Instead of China, we thought the ice cream store in our town would be more realistic. Plus, we probably found ice cream much more thrilling than the idea of ending up in a foreign country where we wouldn't have any idea how to even ask for dessert.

We dug for weeks. Summer's sunny days grew shorter, the cooler night air beginning to wear down our enthusiasm.

Then one day we struck gold. I don't remember who found it, but there among the dirt was a gold chain and cross. What's the only thing better than unlimited ice cream to a child? Buried Treasure!

We rode the high of that incredible find for weeks. It was the talk of the neighborhood kids, and we felt so important. The tunnel was forgotten, lost in the excitement of maps and "X marks the spot."

Years later we found out that the gold jewelry wasn't from some pirate of yore. Our parents, their hearts stretching out to their faithful tunnel digging girls, had planted that treasure in the dirt for us to find. In a world that is so full of disappointment, they had the foresight to turn what would have been an unreachable dream into a delightful fantasy.

You might think that I would have been upset when I found out that the truth was much less glamorous than our fiction. But the opposite was true. It meant everything to me that they had done that. It was a tangible touch of love that affected me deeply. Though I was years away from experiencing and understanding the depth of parental adoration, I was old enough to see that it was bigger than I had ever imagined.