Make The Chili

[Calamity Kris]

Stolen from IG.

 

"A good friend of mine unexpectedly lost his wife.  A couple of months later, we were golfing together, chatting about nothing.  He asked what my dinner plans were and I told him wifey wanted my homemade chili and cornbread, but I didn’t feel like stopping at the store.  We golfed a few more minutes when he quietly said,
 “Make the chili."  
It took me a few minutes to realize we were no longer talking about dinner.  It was about going out of your way to do something for someone you love because at any moment, they could be unexpectedly taken from you.  So today I’m sharing with you that wisdom handed to me by my dear friend, that I’ve thought of many times since that day.  Next time someone you love wants you to go for a walk, or watch a football game or play a board game or just put your phone down and give them your undivided attention, just do it.  
“Make the chili."  

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

Back in 2021, at the tail end of the Zombie Apocalypse, (Covid), I had a friend who was a bit of a conspiracy theorist come down with his semi-annual Bronchial Infection. Normally he'd go to his Dr. and get a antibiotic that would clear in up in short order. Because of the medical community's treatment of Covid, he was reluctant to do so this time. 

Eventually he got so bad that his wife had to get their son to come to Ohio from Wisconsin to convince him to seek treatment. He wound up hospitalized for a couple weeks on Oxygen. When they finally released him, he still had to have Oxygen, and was pretty much confined to his couch in the Living Room. 

After a couple more weeks of that, they cleared him from all that, took the Oxygen away, and told him that he could resume his daily life, but take it easy. He was in the process of sending another Fire Engine to Caye Caulker Belize at the time, so he went back to working on that. He called me on Thursday and told me that he'd just put a battery in the truck, and that it was ready to go. We talked about a trip we wanted to go on after he got the Fire Engine shipped out. 

Sunday night, I got a call from his daughter's best friend. Saturday evening, they'd come home to find him on the floor, unresponsive. He never regained consciousness. The pulled the plug Wednesday. I flew out Thursday, we buried him Friday, had a Memorial Saturday, after which I said Goodbye to Columbus Ohio, probably for good. We'd been friends for 50 years. 

Every DAY I wish that we'd had the chance to make the chili.