THINGS WE TAKE FOR GRANTED: like letting our loved ones know we love them

THINGS WE TAKE FOR GRANTED:
Like letting loved ones know you love them…

In 1996, the last day of the Olympics in Atlanta, my dad went to see the festivities and take pictures. A Ford Explorer ran a red light smashed into my dads car and left him for dead. He had head trauma, a punctured lung, several broken ribs and a lot of other internal damage. The good folks at Grady Hospital said the first 48 hours were touch and go and they weren’t sure he would survive. He did come through it but I was still living in New York at the time did 100 on I95 and I85 to Atlanta realizing I almost lost my dad. After he recovered we sat and talked and realized in my adult life even though we were close as men we had very seldom told each other we loved the other. We almost lost the chance to ever say it to each other. We made a pact that after every phone conversation and every time we saw each other we would end my saying I LOVE YOU to the other.
They were many days I was goin thru something and those three words from my dad really made me feel good, he always lets me know he loves me and that he is so proud of me and the way I have turned my life around.

A few years later he and his wife were goin out of town to a bowling tournament she was about to be in. They went to his doctor to see of ot was safe for him to travel. The doctor took some test and told my dad he had a blood clod in his head and he needed to have an operation. He asked can it be done when they get back and the doctor said not only couldnt he wait until then, that he was scheduling his surgery within the next hour. The operation was successful but if he hadnt come in for the test within days it could have been too late

Last week Wednesday my dad had a dizzy spell and past out. His wife took him to the hospital to have him checked out and the MRI revealed he has a bulging disc in back. The area around his spine is suppose to be about 9 centimeters and it is only 3 centimeters cause a numbness from his chest down to his feet. If he hadn’t come in for test in time the situation could have gotten a lot worst and he could lost the use of his legs and then doctors would be trying to reverse the process.

But now he can have surgery that will be proactive and correct the situation instead. If I didn’t believe there was a God my father is living proof there is. As I sat with him in the hospital awaiting the test results we remembered the pact we made that every now and then we forget. How many times do you tell the people who mean the most to you that you love them before it is too late. My dad is the strongest man I know in my life and in the past 10 years I almost lost him 3 times.
The moral of this story is no one is promised tomorrow. Don’t assume you or your loved ones will be here forever. Don’t assume they know you love them, sometimes just hearing that might get them through a rough time they are having that you don’t know about. And as men we don’t tell or fathers and or sons we love them because it may make you look soft. We must not take things for granted and let our loved ones know we love them.

This concludes my lastest rant.