A Father’s Surprise

by Anne Cassidy

Desiray Wilder wasn’t looking forward to Christmas 2007. It would be the first holiday away from her husband, Matthew, then an Army sergeant, in more than a decade. Worse still, her daughters, Destiny, 10, and Mariah, 7, had celebrated their birthdays without their dad. Now they would have to celebrate Christmas without him, too. “Mariah said she wished he could be wrapped up in a box like a present and mailed home,” says Desiray, who then lived in Elkton, Kentucky.

Matt, on his fourth tour of duty, had six months left, so Desiray knew it was unlikely they’d see him soon. Then one day in early December, Matt called from Iraq. He’d just been accepted to flight school and might be coming home sooner than planned. Desiray thought it would be January at the earliest, so she kept busy volunteering at North Todd Elementary, her girls’ school. “I tried not to get my hopes up,” she says.

On December 10, she got the call she’d been hoping for: Matt was coming home in a few days. Desiray still kept the news from the girls because she knew that military plans could change in an instant. Plus, she’d begun to hatch a secret plan: “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful to surprise Mariah and Destiny at school?’” She knew she couldn’t pull it off alone, so she asked some of the teachers to join in. At first Matt was going to walk in during the morning assembly. But then instructional assistant Tracy Latham, who recalled what Desiray had told her about Mariah’s wish, got the idea of giftwrapping him.

“I bought a red ribbon and wrapping paper,” Latham recalls. While at the store, she couldn’t resist sharing the news with the store greeter, who was helping her find a big, discarded box. “Have you called Channel 13?” he asked. She had not thought of that. Soon the TV station was notified, and by the time all the kids had gathered for the assembly there was a camera crew in the gym and excitement in the air.

Mariah and Destiny had been told that they’d be opening a present sent from their dad during the assembly. As the girls stood in the middle of the gym, an enormous gift-wrapped box was wheeled out. They ripped off the paper and out popped their father, still wearing his Army fatigues.

“Daddy!” they shrieked. Destiny grabbed him around the waist as he reached down, scooped up Mariah and held her close. One look at her girls’ happy faces and Desiray knew that they’d just received the best gift ever. “It was wonderful to have Matt home,” she says. “I don’t know what we’d have done without him.”