Forged in Fire

Just the other day, I was leaving the house for work on a Monday morning. Admittedly, I’m a forgetful person, especially when attempting to get out the door and to work on time. 

I’ll often make it out to my car, realize that I forgot something, and retreat back to the house. Some days, this will happen more than once. This very day was one of them.

Nearly always, it’s my keys – the one thing absolutely necessary to get me from point A to point B in my vehicle. Weird, right?

That said, I don’t know exactly what it was that I had forgotten, to be honest with you – that isn’t the piece of this particular morning that stuck out to me.

As I was driving to work, I couldn’t help but recall the number of times that I came and went from our back door, and the number of times that I muttered the words “I love you.” to my wife and daughter. 

I must’ve said it 15 times – no joke, and I’m grateful that I did.

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Saying “I love you” is important. Whether to your spouse, to your children, or to your extended family and friends. If you love them, let them know. This is something that I included in my “Five Rules for Life,” a piece of writing that I published quite some time ago, but continue to stand proudly behind. 

This is my philosophy, narrowed down. A direct quote from “Five Rules for Life” :

Always say “I love you.”

I mean, always. When you wake up, before you fall asleep, when you get home from work and when you’re walking out the door. When you feel on top of the world, and when you’ve never felt worse. 

This is so important. 

As previously stated – life is precious, and the fate of tomorrow is unknown. Sharing your adoration for another – be it your spouse, your children, your parents, or your best friend – is a must, due to the uncertainty of life itself. 

This one is simple. If you love someone – let them know – and do it often.

This is something that I live by – an integral piece to the puzzle that is my daily existence.

On the good days and on the bad. When your spirits are high, and when you are down in the dumps. The importance of love, and the ability and willingness to vocalize it cannot go understated. 

I, for one, have experienced life’s joys in their most wonderful and exhilarating fashion, while also having experienced turmoil and hardships, death and despair.

This life we are given, is a miracle in and of itself, don’t you think? Never mind the people who were placed within it to experience it all with us. 

Why keep it in? Why not let them know? Even if you’d just told them a mere 45 seconds prior?

Who cares?

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On that gloomy Monday morning, as I commuted to work, this is what I reflected on.

My home. My world. The people and the things that I love so dearly.

They were just hanging around – my wife enjoying her morning coffee, my 8-month old daughter playing with her toys on the floor. Life was as ordinary as ever on that early Monday morning. It was simple, just as it is meant to be.

Life was, in that moment, everything that I’d spent so long dreaming about – everything that a man could ask for. 

And so, it is only right that I make it known – that I yell “I love you guys” up the stairs, one more time. 

At day’s end, or, more deeply, at life’s end, no one regrets saying “I love you” too often.

No, of course not. But, the flip-side? The regret of not saying it enough? The overwhelming feeling of remorse for letting those words go unsaid? 

Don’t let that be you.

Say it once more, or, better yet, say it a million times, because, who’s counting?

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