After driving through one of the worst thunderstorms I have ever faced in a car, the rest of the trip up was uneventful. We got up on Saturday to some cool temps and spent the day hanging out, taking pictures of some hummingbirds and such. We also made ice cream, the old-fashioned way. Now I'm not big on tradition in certain cases, and cranking out some ice cream when I could just buy a tub at the store is one of them. But my kids loved it. They were so excited to help their granddad make it, even if they sat on the barrel so it didn't move. I reluctantly helped crank, even though it was peach and I wasn't going to eat any of it.
A little bit later, my father-in-law Barry fired up the grill for some burgers and dogs. Now he was about 60 years old and not much of a conversationalist. We did have a few things in common, like golf and the occasional NASCAR race, but conversations could often have a long stretch of silence before one of us came up with something new. I wasn't overly eager to hang out while the burgers cooked, thinking that I wasn't going to be much help and that I could be doing other things. But at the prodding of my wife, I sat out with him and talked about Tiger Woods and monster par-5 holes while the sizzle of the grill filled the air. After dinner, we started to watch the race together, both of us sitting there quietly until I began to doze off. A little bit later, I put my kids to bed and fell asleep with them until it was time for everyone to go to bed, at which time I moved them to the living room where we were sleeping.
My wife woke me this morning at 4am and said she needed me right away. As I got up I could hear the dog barking and some laughing or crying, I wasn't sure which, coming from the next room.
"Barry's dead."
As we walked toward the back, I couldn't believe what my wife had said. If anyone in the family was going to pass away in their sleep, we all would have bet the house it would have been her grandmother, who hadn't been in good health since her husband died a few years ago. Apparently, sometime in the last half hour, Barry's wife heard him snoring kind of funny and tried to wake him so he would stop. But she couldn't. My wife couldn't either. And in that instant I those two little words, the man who was more of a father to my wife than her biological dad was, the father-in-law who I had played golf with a week ago and who was "Paw Paw" to my two girls, was gone.
Could I have done anything different? Cranked the ice cream even after my arms tired? Been a little less hesitant to spend a few minutes at the grill with him? Stayed awake during the race so he would have someone other than a bunch of women in the house to talk to? Maybe, maybe not.
But like the lightning bolt that hit directly across the highway from us on the way up, it jolted me into the sad realization that a day which started out so beautifully with hummingbirds and hamburgers could be anyone's last.
So take a minute out of this craziness that we call life and do something really important. Call your parents just because . . . talk to an old friend again . . . hug your kids, and don't let go right away.
Or even just watch a hummingbird. 
