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Today is a Gift





A fender bender at most...
Did I tell her I loved her?
Was she smiling when she waved goodbye?
What was the very last thing that she said to me before she left and was I listening?

A few months ago my daughter was on a school bus headed to school. Someone tried passing it and hit the bus; a minor accident, but the kids still had to unload and reload onto another bus and the principal had to call all of the parents to notify them.

No parent wants that phone call from school:
‘Hello Mr. /Mrs. So & so, this is the principal at x school; your son/daughter’s bus has been in an accident’.

Talk about feeling sick.

Immediately a parent goes into panic mode-you just want the person on the other end to cut to the chase, you want to hear them say that your child is ‘okay’ and that they are ‘happily sitting in their classroom with their schoolmates’.

She was okay, and it was only a minor accident, but it could have been major…

After that phone call I just cried. I quickly tried to remember what I had said to my daughter before she left.
I wondered if I had even seen her.

Sometimes my kids are up and out the door on that early bus before I get up myself. Their step-dad is the early bird, not me. So, the three of them usually eat together.

I used to think it was funny that mommy wasn’t up sometimes before the girls left; not anymore.
From that day on I've made it a goal to be up with my girls and at least hug and kiss them and make it a point to discuss with them their agenda for the day.

That day I was lucky…I did see my daughter before she left for the bus.
She was lucky too. She learned her math, science, Spanish and went to gym class as usual that day.
And she came home in one piece, unharmed. 

Thank goodness.

But this event made me reevaluate my morning routine and had me hoping I’d said something nice to her before she left….

Life can get hectic and crazy. And in the morning, I know that I have more than  once gotten on a child’s case and/or needed to scold a child before leaving for school…

Now, more than ever, I am conscious to always make our departure a positive one. 

'Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today a gift That is why we call it the present.'
          -Eleanor Roosevelt
Truly,
Amber








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