{"id":12133,"date":"2020-01-14T23:03:47","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T05:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/?p=12133"},"modified":"2020-01-14T23:11:24","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T05:11:24","slug":"never-take-for-granted-how-blessed-you-are-to-still-have-them-around","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/never-take-for-granted-how-blessed-you-are-to-still-have-them-around\/","title":{"rendered":"Never Take For Granted How Blessed You Are To Still Have Them Around"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I was sitting at a corner booth that butted up against the back\nwindow at a restaurant today for a business meeting over lunch.  The rest of the group was seated on the bench\nseat with their backs to the window and I was seated at a chair facing the\nwindow.  As I was in the middle of\nanswering a question and looking at the faces of the people I was talking to, I\nsuddenly noticed through the window behind them the profile of an older\ngentleman that was walking past the window. I stopped mid-sentence and\nproclaimed in a voice of surprise, \u2018Hey\u2026that\u2019s my Dad!!!\u201d  They looked at me with a bewildered look on\ntheir faces of \u201cwhat is she talking about?\u201d This time in an excited voice I blurted\nout, \u201cThat man walking by the window right now\u2026that\u2019s seriously my Dad!\u201d  Then I noticed my father had a look on his\nface like he was walking around a bit lost. I immediately asked the people I\nwas meeting with o please excuse me for a second. I rushed through the\nrestaurant and out the front door and I hurried around the outside of the restaurant\nto see if I could find out if everything was okay. His backside was to me as he\nwas walking toward the parking lot so I yelled out his name to get his\nattention. He was totally caught off guard to hear his name called out and\nturned around.  When he saw it was me he\ngot a great big smile on his face as I ran over and threw my arms around his neck\nto give him a big hug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I explained to him that I was in a meeting inside the\nrestaurant when I saw him walk past the window. \n\u201cWhat are you doing out here?\u201d I asked. \nHe got the cutest look on his face and said, \u201cI was over at Home Depot\nand then I\u2019ve been trying to find the ice cream shop that\u2019s somewhere around\nhere so I can go and get myself an ice cream cone!  Then I\u2019m gonna take some of your Mom\u2019s favorite\nflavor home to her!\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know why seeing my Dad today was such a big deal to me. After all, he lives only 15 minutes away from my home. But there was something about seeing his face unexpectedly walk by that window, and being able to run out and give him a hug, and seeing how cute he was with excitement to go and get himself an ice cream cone, and how excited and proud of himself he was that he was going to bring home my Mom a dish of her favorite flavor, that just made my whole day\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went back and inside and finished up my meeting and then hurried over to my office for another meeting. Once I finished up my day and was driving home from work I began replaying the events of the day in my head. I felt my eyes welling up with tears\u2026 \u201cWhy was I feeling so emotional about it?\u201d… I wasn\u2019t really sure why, I just knew that seeing my Dad today meant a lot to me\u2026it made me happy…and grateful\u2026and blessed\u2026\u00a0 Happy that my Dad gets so much joy out of a simple ice cream cone and being able to serve my Mom.\u00a0 Grateful to have such an amazing Dad who is still living and healthy. And blessed that I get to forever be his daughter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those who are lucky enough to have parents still living, find time to go give them a hug! We should never take it for granted how blessed we are to still have them around\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

~Amy Rees Anderson (author of the book \u201cWhat Awesome Looks Like: How To Excel in Business & Life<\/a>\u201d ) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was sitting at a corner booth that butted up against the back window at a restaurant today for a business meeting over lunch.  The rest of the group was seated on the bench seat with their backs to the window and I was seated at a chair facing the window.  As I was in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[22681,22682,550,22685,22690,22683,996,22688,244,180,22684,3189,14725,4318,464,22679,22693,16858,22686,138,13662,22678,22689,22691,22687,22680,22692,19932],"class_list":["post-12133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-an-ice-cream-cone","tag-appreciate-your-parents","tag-blessed","tag-caught-off-guard","tag-dont-take-your-parents-for-granted","tag-excited-and-proud","tag-father","tag-feeling-emotional","tag-grateful","tag-happy","tag-happy-surprise","tag-ice-cream-cone","tag-its-the-little-things","tag-jerry-rees","tag-joy","tag-living-parents","tag-looking-out-the-window","tag-love-your-parents","tag-lucky-to-be-his-daughter","tag-mother","tag-my-dad","tag-never-take-for-granted-how-blessed-you-are","tag-simple-joy","tag-tell-them-you-love-them","tag-the-best-dad","tag-the-loss-of-a-parent","tag-the-power-of-a-hug","tag-what-awesome-looks-like"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12133"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12137,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12133\/revisions\/12137"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}