One Time Or Another

Candler-Telfair Women's Hospital Image From: Georgiaencyclopedia.org

It’s about an hour away from my birth date. At approximately 3:36 on the morning of November 19, I was born at Candler-Telfair Women’s Hospital in Savannah Georgia. My mom was just 17 years old when I was born. And despite rumors to the contrary, my parents were married for over a year before I was born. You may ask how I know all this information. It’s because I’m sure our mother at one time or another told me, my sister, and our little brother our birth stories at some point.
 
It's funny how the years keep rolling by and that now I am three years older than my parents were when they passed. That thought often weighs heavy on my mind. Thinking about all the events my parents missed, the proms, the graduations, the weddings, and the great-grandchildren. I mean you look up to your parents for so long. Then it’s like, you’ve grown beyond them in a way. My kids often think I’m crazy bring up the past like I do. But I want them to grow up with the same since of family history like I did.

Now I’m walking into retirement with my fading heart and my Walmart cane. I talk a lot about legacy knowing now my parents did they best they could. While I sit here in the dark worrying that I wasn’t the best parent that I could. But I’m proud of my kids, they are all doing a lot better than me when I was their age. So who knows maybe on some distant family holiday me I’ll get a kind mention. Mostly because my wife will live to be 106. Hopefully their kids will see them as good role models. So as the clock slowly ticks away to 3:36am, I’ll just keep these things to myself. But maybe, just maybe they’ll be a time when they’ll read my words.