[Jeff Alton]

Hey Guys, got a story to help everyone keep things in their lives in the proper perspective.

On my way home today after work I picked my 5 year old son up from daycare as usual. We drove home and talked about our days. We came inside and took off our shoes and hung up our coats and I took his backpack to the kitchen to take out his lunch kit and look at the art work from his busy day in Kindergarten and daycare.

Pulled out the artwork and noticed a typed letter in with it. It was from his school. The letter was advising parents that counselors would be comming to Wade's class tomorrow to have a talk about "Lizzie". Lizzie is a girl in Wade's kindergarten program at school with a cute "english accent". She got ill last week and passed away on the weekend, at 5 years old. I don't have any other details. I actually did not know what to do for a few minutes.

So we had supper while I thought about the "talk" we were going to have. After supper I looked through some of the old local newspapers on the table and read about "Emma" who was one of Wade's friends from his pre-school last year. There was a big story about a fund raiser for her, it seems she has a tumor the size of a grapefruit in her lung......

Tough night, and these are not my kids. You see, as I found out, kids don't think that this stuff happens to kids. made for a tough conversation for us. But we were fortunate,we got to talk about it. Wade is still a little bummed out (rightfully so) about the whole thing and is having a little trouble understanding. Me too for that matter....

I can not imagine if something like either of these things happened to my son. I can only assume it to be totally unbearable.

When he was three and had come to grips with his mom and I splitting up we made an agreement, sort of in fun at the time. Our agreement was that if our eyes openned in the morning, then it was a good day. Period. Nothing could make that a bad day, after all, our eyes openned...

I think today I realized just how true and important our little agreement really is. NEVER do you think that something could happen to your children, and here are two families in my son's little community living through it.

We put up our Christmas tree tonight also, there are now two special ornaments on it to remind us how lucky we are.

On a side note, I think I handled the talk with Wade quite well and he "gets it" but if anyone has any tips on how to deal with any feelings he may have over the next little while, pass them on!

Cheers