The importance of family

My most favorite weeks of the year are when my boys either come to visit me or I go to visit them. This week, my youngest son Will and his wife Erica drove up to McCook to spend a few days with me and I'm always thrilled and excited to see them. When they left yesterday morning, it was raining literally from McCook all the way to where they live in Bentonville, Arkansas and both Will's mother and I were worried they were going to have to drive the whole way in the rain. But as good fortune would have it, the moisture moved east and they quickly drove out of the rain. So what looked like a trying trip turned out to be a pleasurable one instead.

I had already gotten them a room at my good friend Perry Strombeck's hotel, The Horse Creek Inn, so they checked in there, freshened up, came and picked me up and we went down to El Puerto for our favorite Mexican meals. I'm sure the other Mexican restaurants in town are fine as well but I ate at El Puerto the day it opened and have been going there ever since. In fact, I eat there with a group of faculty members from the college once a week. We're never disappointed and we weren't last night either. We had one of their delicious margaritas before our meal and another one afterwards and everything was just about perfect as we ate, drank, and caught up on each other's lives.

We went from there to Loop's Brewing Company, owned by two other friends of mine, Tyler Loop and Adam Siegfried, and had a cocktail there before making our last stop of the night at the Coppermill Steak House, also owned by Adam. My good friend and former student, Ken Johnson from Hayes Center, is the bartender there and we had a great time talking to him and the cocktail waitresses who weren't extremely busy on a Thursday night.

This morning we're playing golf at Heritage Hills at nine, having lunch at Taste of Texas, touring the town in the afternoon because a lot of things have changed since Will lived here, then going back to the Coppermill this evening for dinner. They're leaving in the morning because they have a Bruno Mars concert to attend in Oklahoma City Saturday night.

When the boys were growing up, we never missed an episode of "Dallas" on television and I remember so many times, J.R. Ewing, the ruthless kingpin and dealmaker of the Ewing dynasty, telling his kin that there's nothing in the world more important than family and he was right. We were blessed with three wonderful boys and they each, in their own way, have made their parents proud. And even though they have families of their own now, they never neglect their birth parents and their mother and I are eternally grateful for that because we never neglect them either. No matter how old they become or what success they achieve in life, Michael and Will will always be our babies.

Will's wife, Erica, lost her dad to cancer a few months ago so now I have a daughter too. I can never replace her dad but she has my assurance that I will do everything I can for her, just like I do for my boys. She's a lovely woman and I'm so glad she and Will found each other.

The last loving relationship I had with a woman was when Michael and Will were both living with me and attending MCC and they got to know and love her as I did. They had a special relationship with her and, if things had worked out, I'm sure that relationship would have flourished but I guess that wasn't meant to be. I've dated no one since so my boys are my life.

As many of you know, we lost our oldest son and the boys lost their older brother, Brandon, a decade ago while he was serving in the Navy and stationed in San Diego. That tragic loss has made us even closer because it cemented in our minds that every day is a gift. So we embrace life with each other and try to live each day to the fullest, not knowing how much longer we'll be together.

Michael and his wife Nicki were unable to come up this year because of work responsibilities but I'll see them when I go to Arkansas on Christmas. When the boys graduated from MCC, they moved to Lincoln where they attended UNL for the next two years and that was a perfect place for them to be. On Thanksgiving, their mom would drive up from Arkansas, I would drive over from McCook and we would have three or four days of family time like we had when they were young. The last year we celebrated Thanksgiving in Lincoln was the time Brandon died. He called us on Thanksgiving Day, we all got to talk to him and two days later he was dead, tainting that day for us forever. So now we get together on Christmas instead.

I'm thankful every day for my boys and for the positive impact they're making on the world they live in.