365 Days Of Love. Day 44

Growing up, we lived 4 blocks from our elementary school. Unless it was bitterly cold, my sister and I, along with our neighbors, walked to and from school.

One day, in first grade, I walked home from school by myself. Waiting for me, dangling from the door handle, when I arrived was a Disney-themed umbrella with a colbalt blue handle, stuck with a note for me, but no indicators as to how it got to our shiny gold door handle.

As soon as my parents walked in the door later that evening, I asked if they had given me the umbrella. They looked at me, questioningly, and shook their heads no. The next day at school, I asked my teacher. Her response mimicked my parents’ exactly. I exhausted my 7-year old social circle, but none of them could give me any answers as to where my Mickey Mouse adorned umbrella had come from. My mom suggested that perhaps my grandparents placed it on the door handle while I was at school. When I asked them, though, they promised me they didn’t.

When I was a little girl, I was always digging in the sandbox, trying to find my way to China. I’d create treasure maps for imaginary jewels. I always wanted an adventure, a mystery, but when such a puzzle was afforded me in the mysterious gifting of the umbrella, all my efforts at solving the puzzle led me nowhere.

Despite the anonymity of the gift, I loved my umbrella so much. Much to my mom’s refusals, I’d open it and strut around the house like I was stuck in an Island Hurricane. I loved the sound of the crisp plastic, I loved looking at the characters and creating stories in my head about their daily interactions. Every day, I wished for rain, so I would have reason to skip to school holding the rounded cobalt blue handle, shielded by Goofy and Minnie and Mickey.

To this day, 17 years later, I have no idea who left that umbrella hanging on our door handle. Assumingly, it was one of the people I asked when I was 7, but he or she has managed to keep it a secret.

The umbrella gifter taught me that loving is gifting without recognition, gifting to induce a mysterious treasure hunt, gifting to feed the adventurous spirit within a little girl.