Doing What He Loved, Part Deux

I am not a grossly sentimental person. Aside from my two pregnancies, when I was prone to cry at the coffee commercial where the guy who played Steve on the Young and the Restless back in 1989 comes home from college.... "Peter! You're home!". That one got me every dang time. I digress...

Most of the time, I am a pretty level-headed person when I hear about toddlers who fall in wells and are subsequently saved, or dogs who get stranded on the top of a roof during a flood.... while I will show interest in these things (I'm not dead!), I don't get too attached.

Perhaps it's because I am a parent. If I get too close to something that resembles the loss of a child, I pull back. It's too hard. I cannot even fathom....

So when the story of the Kim family in Oregon began unwinding, I paid attention out of the "corner of my ears". A lot to bear, and it seemed so unlikely that a happy ending was coming.

But then! They found mom and the girls! Wow! Burned tires and breastfeeding! Super Mom! Now, let's get dad home! Alas, it wasn't in the cards. Dad was found a few days later, he had perished in the snow trying to save his family.

I've never met James Kim, but I'm sure I know him. He's a dad. He's the one who made the courageous decision to go find help. To save his girls. In the end, it was his bravery that did him in. Had he been just a little more cowardly... just a little hesitant, perhaps.....

Some say he was a hero. I say he was a great dad. Higher praise, in my mind, as becoming a great dad is not accomplished without a great heart, an open mind and a deep commitment to those fragile little blessings we call children.

To James Kim, who died doing what he loved, protecting his wife and children, I say Godspeed.