We are continuously amazed by how creative and determined VoiceQuilt gift givers can be...
How do you make your mother's 80th Birthday extra special?
If you are ALisa S., you sign up for VoiceQuilt's 3 days of Unlimited Messages, immediately send email invitations to 51 friends and family, and then start choosing and uploading 16 songs that you know your mother will enjoy.
You are not concerned about delivering your VoiceQuilt on a Saturday to the North Georgia mountains. You aren't even deterred when neither UPS nor Fedex offer delivery to the North Georgia mountains on Saturdays. You simply Google a hotel in a town nearby and cajole the Hotel Manager into accepting a Saturday delivery for you (even though no one will be renting a room). Then, you coax a few of your mother's neighbors to trek over the mountains to retrieve the treasured gift so that Mom has it in time for her 80th birthday on Sunday.
Problem solved.
Not quite. A snowstorm in another part of the country disrupts the normally-scheduled Saturday delivery. If you're ALisa, you contact the shipper and persuade them to keep their Gainesville, GA office open long enough so that the cab (just discovered online) can deliver the VoiceQuilt Keepsake to the kindly Hotel Manager. (And did we mention that ALisa convinced the shipper to refund her shipping charges?)
So far so good.
Except the cab driver found over the internet will only accept cash. So, if you're ALisa, you make a quick call to the Hotel Manager (now vying for sainthood), securing a promise to pay the cabbie in cash until your Mother's friends can provide reimbursement - when they pick up the VoiceQuilt Keepsake.
Then, you go through 500 photos, selecting the best for a photo show to accompany the VoiceQuilt keepsake.
Late into Saturday night, your mother's friends gently place the VoiceQuilt Keepsake Box with 70 recordings for your mother on her front door step...just in time for Sunday's celebration.
Interesting part of the story: one of the daughters suggested dressing up the VoiceQuilt Keepsake Box up like an orphan baby wrapped in a red quilt . ALisa's mother always gets up early (like 5am). The friends put down the basket with the baby/box, rang the door and ran. They did it again and no one came.
Alisa's mother slept late for once in her life.
The friends came too far in this adventure not to see it through so this is what happens next. They coaxed a friend (unknown to ALisa's mother) to call around 7:25AM to say "I hear it is your birthday today. You have something outside your front door."
ALisa emailed us afterward:
"... I can say without a doubt that receiving this special and precious gift from so many who love her, hearing all her children, grandchildren, many relatives and friends who were not able to be present with her, brought her such joy. She wore herself out listening to all of it all day as it was over two hours long!"
You words depicted this beautifully Hope. One might imagine why my wonderful mother did not have us surrounding her on her glorious 80th. My stepfather, her husband of many years had just passed the month before and our entire family came together for this. It was too difficult to gather again in this magnitude but the gift of VoiceQuilt allowed every single voice of her children, grandchildren, relatives and precious friends who have traveled the distance with her to be heard in one place, in one precious beautiful box, an extraordinary gathering in her honor, honoring her the way she deserved to be on such a special day. All this came in that small but powerful bundle.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, special days in our families, among our friend, among our work, occur every day. Look what is possible when we use this tool. The business of VoiceQuilt is personal and you can tell this in the way that they work with you. Jay, gave me encouragement and checked in on me nearly every step of the way. To the degree that we care about who we are caring for is the same way we are met in this business. They care too and are caring in their delivery.
To have a mission, I needed a treasure worth going through all the difficulty and let me tell you, when it was trapped in a closed Fedex building, 45 minutes from being delivered on a Saturday, knowing it would be inside that building on her Sunday birthday, was just too much to bear. All those wishes, songs, sweet sounds of grandchildren, .... HER BIG BIRTHDAY PARTY IN A BOX. Well, everyone in this adventure recognized that something had to be done to save the day. Every participant who made it possible acted like a Christmas angel and this includes Fedex too mind you. My gratitude for all runs deep.
Thank you VoiceQuilt family. Thank you mother! Thank you family and friends who played with me to bring one of the best gifts of her life.