I wouldn't have missed it for the world

I don't really do Valentine's Day. I'm more about Gal-entines, truth be told. And 15 Feb, because I love when chocolate and flowers get greatly reduced. 🤣🙈

I've been thinking about about my parents this month, it being the 3rd year since full year without my dad and 15 years since that whole catching on fire thing. 

The day my mom died, we got back into the F150 and drove the very short distance to the Fisher House. The radio was playing 'I wouldn't have missed this for the world,' which felt apt, because as nuts as she drove me, there really isn't anyone quite like her.  

Jim hopped on the ferry 3 years ago today and I've often thought that was one of his more thoughtful gestures to his beloved, because he'd never been great at being able to express his love or at gifts. As a pre-teen, he'd drop me at the mall to sort something Once I was old enough to drive, he'd send me out to find something as a gift, a shopping bloodhound.  

This is a photo of their last European adventure together: Ireland and Cyprus.  It makes me smile to think that they are together somewhere arguing over what to watch or whether they should take the highway or the byway. When I find myself humming that same Ronnie Milsap song and it makes me smile. Sometimes it makes me cry, but in a good way. But what I really love is when I am in the car with my two kids and it comes on a playlist and we all start singing it together, like my mom and I used to do in that maroon VW Rabbit we had in Gulfport or when it would come on the radio on a roadtrip. They don't feel so far away, then. And I know I would 't have missed any of it, not for the whole world. 

https://open.spotify.com/track/7sNKhnl4MZnHdMzvmC4jG5?si=Ho0YgacnQwmlwjePBIfz2A