WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Emerson Koontz is probably like a lot of 11-year-old girls these days? She misses hanging out with her friends, is tired of being at home, and even misses school, “I’m really bored, really bored,” said Koontz.
If you’re not into video games and you’ve already watched a lot of your favorite movies or shows on Netflix what’s a girl to do? You can shoot baskets if you have a hoop or maybe kick the soccer ball around but that only takes up like two hours a day.
Emerson does have a tree swing in the backyard so that keeps her occupied for a while but eventually, even that gets boring. One day recently Emerson was bored and thinking about a friend who passed away recently, “My mom said every time I think of a person who passed away then there’s a chance that I could find a four-leaf clover,” said Koontz.
Having looked several times in the past but never finding one Emerson wasn’t so sure she would find one? In fact, if not for chasing a butterfly that landed on a clover patch, she may not have looked at all.
A short time later, knee-deep in the grass, she started looking for a clover, “I was looking and thinking and praying to God and I found a (four-leaf) clover,” said Koontz.
She kept praying and thinking about her friend and she found another four-leaf clover, “She came running over and said I found a second one and I thought wow that’s impressive,” said her mother Shannon Koontz.
At this point Emerson had been looking for clovers about 30 minutes when she saw something out of the corner of her eye, “I was like hold up is this even possible,” said Koontz.
The young girl, who had never found a four-leaf clover until today found something even better, “So just out of curiosity I googled it to see how common it was and it’s kind of like hitting the lottery,” said Shannon Koontz. “She comes over with like a clover flower or a clover with a lot of petals, so we counted the stems and there were six.”
Yep… Emerson found a six-leaf clover, “We put them in a book to flatten them so we can see them very well,” said Koontz.
Her mom grabbed the biggest book she could find, which happened to be an old college textbook. They opened the book up and tucked the clovers in the pages and they wrapped rubber bands around the book to keep it tight.
A couple of days later when they went to open the book and look at the clovers Emerson’s mom noticed something, “I took a picture of the clovers and realized it landed on a story that was based in Ireland and I thought how lucky was that,” said Shannon Koontz.
Emerson has since found two more four-leaf clovers and plans to give one to everyone in her family with a handwritten note. She decided to keep the six-leaf for herself and remember the friend she was thinking about when she found it.
Emerson thinks to find the clovers was something special and feels it might be some kind of sign, everything will be okay.
