Bag Full of Emotions

I get much comfort of getting my feelings out when I write. Today has just been a emotional rollercoaster. I knew it was bad when I fell apart in front of my 22 nine year olds and all they wanted to do was give me a group hug. Thank the Lord for small blessings. This week as been full of memories of my daddy. Monday night Sean Kendrick was named as the new Calera Fire Chief. As a family we are delighted at the mayor's choice and for Sean's family, but it so hard to know that someone else will be sitting in my dad's office and driving his truck. Sean did honor our request to retire dad's call number of Chief 20.

It hurts...

• Every time I hear those sirens while at school it sends chills up me.
• When I leave the lunchroom and look out at the station to see if dad's truck is there.
• Every time I drive up to my parent's house and look at all of dad's projects that he loved so much.
• When I talk to Ruby and she still looks for her Pop.

I know this is just going to take time, but it hurts my heart.

I also want to tell two awesome stories.

November 27 would have been my parents 32 wedding anniversary and believe it or not my mom got a dozen yellow roses from my dad. See my daddy was such a romantic. He loved to do the smallest things to make you feel loved. When he was diagnosed with leukemia he told a family friend that there was an envelope in his desk drawer with her name on. It had instructions for her to take care of a few things. One of the things was to send mom one dozen yellow roses on their anniversary. He even left a card and the money to go with them. So, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving (because the florist was closed on Friday) mom received her roses at work. My brother and I knew about it and we were both so worried about how she would take it, but she handle it very well. There is no way of knowing if dad knew that his time on earth would be shorter or longer but he was prepared to do something for his wife. Talk about true love!

For Thanksgiving we decided to get away and go to Callaway Gardens for the weekend. We left Friday morning, stopped in Montgomery to watch the Iron Bowl and then on to Georgia. We were schedule to go see the Fantasy Lights that night. I had no idea what the Lord had in store for me. We were fortunate to be able to ride the trolley. Shortly after we began to make our way through the lights I heard a daughter talking to her daddy about the pretty Christmas trees and how she liked the red one. I started listening a little closer because the next thing I remember hearing was her telling her daddy that she loved him. All I could think about was how I remember being so innocent at such a young age and I was such a daddy's girl. As the ride continued I begin to talk to the young girl whose name was Riley and she was in the first grade. We talked about symmetry with the lights on the pond, the beautiful butterflies, and flowers that were all lit up. I also remembered how as a family we used to go load up in the car to go look at Christmas lights. I always enjoyed this part of Christmas. As the ride started to come to an end, I knew that the Lord placed Riley and her dad Steve on that trolley for me. He wanted me to remember what it was like to wrap up in my dad's arms because it was cold or just to get a hug and a kiss from him. When we got of the ride I felt the need to tell Steve that I believe that the Lord put them on that trolley with me for a reason. He told me that he could tell from the conversations we had as a family that we had apparently had lost our dad. I'm so thankful for that little girl.

Okay, now that I've sat here and cried as I wrote this post I feel better and I think it is now time to go to bed.