This past Sunday morning I was given the rare privilege of having breakfast with my dad and my son.
That might seem like a pretty mundane thing to you, but for me, it is pretty rare.
My dad is 85, and my son is 29. For me, stuck in the middle, I found great joy in sitting with the two of them over breakfast at Johnny B’s and simply enjoying the meal and the conversation.
The morning left me pondering the importance of family, and further thinking about family as a whole.
It came to mind that some people don’t consider the imprtance of family. Think about it.
The inmates at Telford Unit are the sons and brothers to a family out there somewhere.
The man who was just sentenced to prison for some atrocity still has a family that cares about him, no matter the crime he committed.
The woman with her mugshot on some website or in the local paper is still the daughter, sister or mother to a family somewhere.
I guess I am thinking about that after breaking one of my own rules by reading the comments on a social media post on our very own Tribune Facebook. Yes, when crimes are committed, someone has to pay for their crimes, and the punishment should be meted out to the severity of the crome.
But, regardless of the crime or the punishment, there is still a family involved...on both sides.
There will be the family of the victims that mourns their loss. There will be a family of those who perpetrated the crime, and they also mourn the loss after punishmet is doled out.
Either way, there is family involved and family that loves their family member whichever side of the law they are own.
It brings to mind the efforts of my friends like Robert and Beth Little who minister in the prison to all of those who are somebody’s son, husband or father. And I think about my friend Edna Walker who also devotes so much of her time ministering to those same men, and their family.
And that is the key word here...family.
We should all think about how imprtant our family is to us. I am blessed to be able to see a lot of my dad these days, and since both of my daughters work here with me at the Tribune, I am further blessed to see them most every day. My son, well...he is more like his daddy than either of us care to admit. He has a job he loves and he spends most of his time there. If they were open seven days a week, odds are he would be there seven days a week. Kinda like his dad, who is sitting at his desk right now, on Sunday, writing this piece for you to read. (That’s all I am gonna say about my son at the moment. It’s a whole “cats in the cradle” thing and it will get my eyes to watering if I keep it up.)
My point is, forgive me for wandering, we all need family. Even when we don’t agree, even when we drive each other crazy, even when they don’t live the way you live, believe the things you believe, or even when they go vegan and won’t eat bacon for breakfast with you, family is vital to a happy life.
Perhaps we should all cherish that more, and while we are at it, maybe we should all be a little more mindful before we criticize or condemn someone and consider their family first.
I pray that we all make mire time for family time. I pray that we remember the imprtance of family as we go through these fast-paced days and that we stop and smell the roses along the way.
In my family’s case, we remember and we atke the time to remember the pink carnations and the fried pies and the butterflies...because she made us family. That is all that really matters.
