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Always in My Heart
It had been one of those all too frequent Five-O cases that involved multiple late nights, canceled days off and single minded focus on uncovering the truth and arresting the perpetrators. The fact that Mother's Day had come and gone had slipped Danny's mind. His own mother had been gone for years, lost to him in his childhood. But in her place was Aunt Clara, now his only living blood relative. Aunt Clara: feisty and spry for her years, a former actress who could talk your ear off with exciting tales of her days in the theater. And Danny always called the grand lady and sent her flowers for Mother's Day. Oops.
Danny felt terrible. He understood and accepted that at times his profession demanded his complete attention to the exclusion of all else, and that was one of the characteristics that made him such a good cop. But forgetting Aunt Clara on Mother's Day? How was he ever going to make up for that? He looked at the small balance in his savings account passbook. After rent, utilities, groceries, gas and dry cleaning, there was precious little left from his weekly $184.50 pay check. Danny had been trying to set some money aside. He and Kono had been saving for new surfboards. He glanced over at his old surfboard, leaning up against his living room wall. The paint was wearing off in places and there were numerous dents and dings from wipeouts. Danny smiled wistfully. Each dent and ding told the story of an adventurous day at the beach with Kono or one of his other surfing buddies. That board was like an old friend. Did he really need a new board? A smile spread across his face that lit up his bright blue eyes. His decision was made.
o-o-o
Clara Williams was quite surprised when she heard a knock at the front door of her modest home on the Hudson River in upstate New York. She wasn't expecting anyone. She opened the door to a delivery man bearing two dozen pink long stemmed roses. The flowers were lovely and Clara just beamed as she tipped the man and carried the fragrant bouquet into her living room and set them on the coffee table. When she opened the envelope that had been nestled in the arrangement, she found a letter carefully folded around a round trip plane ticket to Hawaii! Tears of joy filled her eyes as she read the message that was straight from her nephew's heart:
Dear Aunt Clara,
How I could possibly forget to call you on Mother's Day is beyond me. You mean the world to me and I don't tell you that often enough. So I hope that you will accept this small gift so that I can tell you in person and show you around our fiftieth state! I'll call you about the arrangements soon. Until then, a belated Happy Mother's Day! I love you.
Always in my heart,
Danny
Pau