When the girls are at their dad’s for the weekend, I make a point to call each night and get a recap of their day.
The youngest one has no filter either. Whatever comes across her brain comes out her mouth. She tells me if her sisters have been bad, if she’s displeased with the weather, and most definitely if she hates the food.
“Daddy fed us angina,” she said.
Hmm? Angina? I’m pretty sure that maybe whatever he fed her may have given her heart pains, but even though having a hearing-impaired daughter makes me a master decoder, I still needed more clues to figure that one out.
“What did it have it in?” I asked, and she began with sausage, beans, rice, and so on. Dinner, it seemed, was jambalaya. Angina, jambalaya – I could see where the translation error occurred.
It was one of those silly conversations that stick with you, you know? And as the week rolled on, the conversation brought a sad smile to my face after learning that one of my Mr. Man’s coworker’s – a fellow Covington County Sheriff’s deputy – had been killed while responding to traffic accident. The evening before he’d kissed his wife good-bye and went to work. He never came home and will never have a silly conversation with his children again.
For me, it was a reminder that life is short and time is fleeting.
I’m lucky in that I have a job that I love; however, it can be quite time consuming – especially if you’re working at a daily newspaper.
Since coming to Brewton, I’ve been able to spend more time – quality time – with my family. After hearing the news of the crash, it further affirmed for me that I made the right decision.
If anything the news of Heath’s death was a reminder to me that I – and we – should all work to make every moment count. We should kiss our children, listen to them when they complain; call our mothers and significant others just to say, “I love you.” We should stop and breathe a bit. Relax. Bask in the sun, stand in the rain and revel in this wonderful world. We should live today like it’s our last because no one is guaranteed a tomorrow.