I wanted to surprise my husband Ben by coming home early from my business trip, but I ended up finding something very different. He was buried a huge, shiny, black egg in the lawn while perspiring and clearly anxious. He got evasive when I asked him what he was doing, dismissing my inquiries and urged me to enter. His enigmatic actions only piqued my interest, so I looked into it myself.
I discovered the odd egg, which Ben had concealed, to be very light when I dug it up the following morning after he had left. I was shocked to see that it was empty, simply a hollow black plastic shell. When the headlines later that day revealed a counterfeit scam that targeted antique collectors with phony items, my suspicions were confirmed. I realized the egg was a fraud.
He sobbed when he confronted Ben and said that he had spent $15,000 on the alleged “artifact.” He had been persuaded by a colleague that it was an old piece that would quickly increase in value by threefold. Ben wanted to sale it so he could surprise me with the trip to Europe we had been dreaming about. He felt stuck by his own error and the stupid hope he had put in the plastic egg, though, and was too ashamed to admit it when he realized he had been duped.
I told Ben that we didn’t need costly gifts or high-risk investments to be entire when we sat across from one another at the kitchen table, the egg between us. We required cooperation and honesty. We chose to bury the egg in the garden as a reminder of our common lesson—that although love can take us down unexpected pathways, what really counts is our dedication to one another.
Our relationship took a new turn that night. Together, we discovered that trust, not meaningless possessions, was what made us strong as a marriage and that vulnerability and forgiveness go farther than any extravagant gesture.
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