It must have been early summer. This happened years ago. My dad asked, “Do you have 10 minutes where I can show you something?” Wouldn’t say what it was about. He drove us to the cemetery. Out of the car, he led me away from the gravesites, down a hill toward a swampy area where cattails grow. Our footsteps squished down the incline, then splashed as the ground became saturated, and then he stopped. I’m sure I didn’t notice and he had to point it out to me. Miniature frogs, each about the size of a short fingernail, latticed the ground, leaping in every direction. So this was their breeding ground. They looked like static fizzling in front of me as I tried to catch them in my hands. I don’t know how my dad discovered the frogs, since none of our relatives are buried in that cemetery.
We walked around the area for a little bit and discovered, amid a clump of tangled vines and other wild plants, a rare Michigan lily in bloom. I got a good picture of it, which my dad now has hanging on his dining room wall.
What if my dad had mentioned, “I saw a bunch of little frogs the other day”? How much more exciting to let me experience the wonder firsthand! This is the kind of surprise that’s better than any gift you could wrap. Now I’ve got the memory.
The frogs would be gone within a week or so. The next year, we went back, and the park had mowed down that whole section of wildflowers. I like to think that someone dug up that lily and took it home, but I have my doubts. People are honest. Memories and photographs might be all that’s left of it.