I can’t fully tell this story without making a confession…
On many nights, my wife and I sleep in separate rooms…
not because my wife is mad at me! No! I am not in the doghouse.
It is difficult for her to fall asleep so, since we have chosen to leave our television in the storage facility, she frequently falls asleep reading on the couch. Last night, was no exception.
The cute part of it is when she tries to secretly tiptoe into the bedroom at four something in the morning because she doesn’t want to wake me up. Well, usually, I have been laying in bed for a few minutes wondering if I should go get her or just get up and start the day.
This morning she “snuck” into the bedroom at 5:35. No sooner had she got into bed than my cell phone rang.
I don’t usually have my cell phone in my bedroom. I charge it overnight in the library. However, last night my oldest daughter called me after I went to bed. So, rather than getting back out of bed, I just laid it down and went to sleep.
This morning, at 5:37 A.M, my phone rang again. It’s a good thing that I had it! It was my second daughter:
“Kimba, what’s going on?”
“Can you come open the door?”
At this point, I have to give you a little background here…a look behind the scenes for you Hollywood people…a little inside baseball for you sports people…a small leak of classified information for you politicos out there…
With her being recently hired at two different restaurants, her holiday plans were hard to pin down. We have discussed them on AT LEAST three different occasions over the last few months.
In fact, it STILL wasn’t clear to me as of last weekend so I called her and asked her if she was going to be able to make it for Thanksgiving.
“Dad, I told you that I can’t make it for Thanksgiving. I’m coming for Christmas.”
“OK. I thought that was what you had said. Listen, because I keep getting confused, say ‘Dad, I’m not coming for Thanksgiving. Stop asking me.’ ”
So, she did.
Last night, I wanted to play with her so I called her at 8:00. She answered the phone. “Hi, Dad.” (caller ID)
“Are you coming?”
“I told you no!”
“I know. I was just checking to see if maybe something could have somehow sorta worked out some kind of way at the last minute.”
We laughed, talked for a few minutes and hung up.
Back to this morning…
As soon as I realized that “something did somehow sorta work out some kind of way at the last minute,” I leaped out of bed, told my wife to follow me, ran down the stairs and opened the door to not one but TWO shivering young women.
I then realized that I wasn’t really dressed to greet the other young woman so I apologized, ran back up the stairs as fast as I could, threw on some sweat pants and a shirt and ran back to the living room to hug both of them.
She and her best friend took off shortly after we got off the phone last night. They had planned it, got off of work, etc. Wow! What a surprise! What a blessing!
My oldest daughter is flying in tomorrow night. (Big A & Cakes don’t know that so I hope they don’t read this!) This will be the first time that our family has been together (other than a few hours at a wedding) in TWO YEARS! I am thankful.
