Mommy is heading to Dallas this weekend to catch up with my college girlfriends and help in one of the gal's wedding plans. Daddy is spending the weekend with Little K and some help from my in-laws. I wish I had extra hands during the week but don't get me started.
I've been reading this amazing book called Keeping the Faith: How Applying Spiritual Purpose to Your Work Can Lead to Extraordinary Success by Ana Mollinedo Mims. It's really good & not preachy. The author immigrated to the U.S. with her parents from Cuba when she was a young child. This and her family's experience of paving its way has opened my eyes to a lot. Take, for instance, some of the sacrifices her father made.
"I look back at my father.
I saw him put on a uniform every morning and drive a meat delivery truck: sides of beef, sometimes a whole cow. At night, he washed dishes at the pizza place down the street. He moved his way up the ranks at the meatpacking company and went from a blue-collar to a white-collar job as a salesperson in the same organization, with a company car and customers to visit. Now retired, he still works a part-time job in the meatpacking buisness, a business he's been in for almost forty years. Everybody is South Florida knows him -- restaurant owners, supermarket owners, and small bodega owners. Some of them have known him from when he was wearing a uniform with his first name on it, driving the truck and hauling beef, to when he would walk in wearing a suit and tie as a salesperson.
I remember the times that I was hitting a softball or kicking a soccer ball. My father would be in the stands, wearing a dress shirt and tie, somtimes the only father around at 5:30 pm on a work night. He rarely missed a game. It wasn't until I was in the workplace and watched so many of my male colleagues work late hours that I realized the price my father must have paid in terms of promotions and raises for leaving "on time" to watch us play sports. It wasn't until I became an adult with the similar choices that I realized the choice my father made every day and every week in favor of being there for us.
That was a large part of his legacy to me... More importantly, he showed me that once you become a parent, you must constantly make significant choices in favor of those who come behind you."
Makes me wonder why I'm still typing instead of picking up Little K early from school on a gorgeous Friday & doing something fun. Oh yeah. I'm heading to Dallas shortly so scratch that. Well, I'll make up for it. The longer I'm a parent, the more I realize my daughter will remember snuggling in her bed, building tents in the family room, and hearing me cheer for her. I don't want to give her the option of remembering Mommy working forever behind the computer. I remember my own Mom & Dad being there for me when it really mattered. And today, they are still there for me. What a profound effect that can have on a person... well into adulthood.
Until the next nap time...
