As you may know, from the last post, my mother-in-law (Nancy) was buried last week. The formality of family gathering, planning, attending a Wake, performing the ceremony, and laying her in the ground, was relatively new to my kids. My boys, who are older, slightly remember their great grandparents passing, but they were quite young. […]
Category: Inspiring Stories
Don’t Talk “Down” to Them
When my second son was around two, we were sitting at a restaurant that had butcher paper on the table tops. My older son was sitting in a chair next to his mother, and on the other side (the booth side) of the table is where my second son and I sat. As we waited […]
Do You Want to Go Fast, or really, really Fast?!
I work with a gentleman who is a few years older than I, divorced, and recently has found the joy of children, whether seeing them in the restaurant, out “riding the bike” (as he says), or taking pictures of families – as is his new hobby. He seems to have had a good home life, […]
R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
(“…find out what it means to me” — Aretha Franklin) Society tries to teach us that respect must be earned, or deserved, before it can be given. I disagree. Especially when it comes to children. Most parents would agree that unconditional love is the key to a healthy upbringing, and on paper that sounds like […]
The Lebron James Analogy
Imagine if you were playing a pick-up basketball game after work, and Lebron James just happened to be passing by, he saw a drive you took to the basket to score, and then made it a point to stop and tell you that it was a nice move. You would be beside yourself thrilled (if […]
Just Try
About three years ago, I had an opportunity to be part of a mission trip to Nicaragua, with my son. We went to the informational meeting primarily for my son Wesley who was 15 at the time, and part of his “15 Year Challenge” include going on a mission trip that year. At the meeting, […]
You Are a Hero! (1)
I remember it like it was last week, but really it was 2001. We were in Mount Prospect, Illinois in a sparsely decorated living room of a house we had rented from the people next door. I was working four part-time jobs, two of which were professional regional theater “shows”, one was a shipping clerk […]
Good Job Dad!
The other night, a less than middle aged man entered the hallway that shared destinations of both the kitchen and the guest bathrooms. Here, he stopped with his toddler in his arms, and looked directly into the face of his young boy. “This is not the way we are going to behave,” he said, […]