Boom!

As a reader of this blog you may or may not know that my wife died of pancreatic cancer earlier this year. So it has been a year of firsts, including, at least mentally, recognizing the monthly anniversary of her passing. I almost missed yesterday; it was the 10 month anniversary. Interestingly, it didn’t dawn on me until the middle of the afternoon. It was probably overlooked because yesterday morning was full of activity so I could take the boy (I affectionately call my pre-teen son “the boy” in this blog) out for a little over due father/son time. We decided on a couple of movies.

It was during the drive to the theater that the date hit me. I asked the boy if he had noticed–no was his reply. We talked about the anniversary and mom the rest of the way to the theater. It seems we both felt as though it has been both a short time and a long time. Strange that one can have a sense of both at the same time. We concluded our conversation with something like “mom would like these movies we’re gonna see”. …and she would have.

The boy and I enjoyed our movies but mostly, I think, we enjoyed doing something together. For the record we watched Here Comes the Boom and Wreck it Ralph.

I had an interesting thought during the first movie (Boom). When the school music program was threatened with being closed….BOOM… the main character, Scott Voss, rises to the occasion to rescue the program. In real life few of us guys will be called upon to be a hero to save the world or even a school program. Hopefully few husbands and dads will be asked to care for a spouse or child during a terminal illness as I experienced during my wife’s battle. But the calling to heroically engage one’s family daily is upon all husbands and dads. May we rise to the challenge of being a husband and father so our spouse and children may be able retell stories of us that climax with a huge BOOM because we showed up.