Hope it's a long way off

At dinner last night, Sean told us about a co-worker whose wife was distraught over the death of Whitney Houston. The man walked in the door Monday night to find her in tears because her VHS tape of The Preacher’s Wife had torn. (If you are too young to know what a VHS tape is, I don’t want to know.)  Sean’s friend turned into the hero of the night when he simply went on iTunes and downloaded the movie.

His story made me wonder how I’d respond to the death of a celebrity I really loved. “I wonder how I’d react to news of Amy Grant’s death?”

Michael, without missing a beat, pointed at Sean and said, “That will be a horrible day for you, Dad. Worse for you than Mom. You’ll have to go to Iraq to get away from the news.”

They all began chiming in with what they’d have to do to keep me from learning the news. Unplug the router, hide the remote control, cut the electricity, move to Timbuktu.  I said, “You can do all that but I’d still have my iPhone.”

“We’d take it,” said Sean. And he said it with such conviction I realized he had actually thought about the scenario. And not just then; seemed he’d thought it through before.

The kids were way more concerned for Sean than for me. “You’ll just have to move, Dad. Don’t know when you’ll be able to come home.” “How long a vacation can you take?” “Where do you think you’ll go?”

Seriously. My hero dies and all they can think about is Sean?

Thankfully, it wasn’t AG’s time, and hopefully it won’t be for many, many years. But apparently, when it happens, Sean is prepared to attempt to keep me from finding out. He’s also prepared to get out of Dodge at a moment’s notice. Nice thing was he said he’d take me along.

Good news for them – if they can keep me away from the computer and my phone, I’ll never find out because I don’t know how to work our new TV.  So they do have that going for them.

Oh, any excuse to publish this again... I still have that sweater.