Love Actually is All Around

I'm sitting at my favorite Caribou Coffee for the last time (holding back tears, for reals).  Caribou is such an integral part of my life.  I feel like a dear friend is moving away.  Melodramatic?  Perhaps.  But who wants to sit and read or have deep conversation at a Starbucks?  Not me.  There is no warmth there. No fireplace. No beautiful wood tables with fun benches to sit on. No chalkboards to draw pictures or spell out your thoughts. No area for kids to play. No pictures of the founders adorning the walls. No trivia questions. Can I say no character?  Perhaps I am being too harsh. I like Starbucks for work and meetings. But it says nothing to my soul. Caribou - well, it is a place my soul has always felt at home. I worked at Caribou for a short time and grew closer to one of my besties, Sarah, during that time.  We used to send each other ridiculous messages in the memo line on the computer screens (sample: Devo = whipped cream. Whip it. Whip it good).  One day, one of us we

I was flipping channels in between periods of the Blackhawks game today and saw that Little Big League was on.  This movie has always been special to me, and it's been years since I've seen it.  It actually took me a while to remember why Little Big League has meaning for me.  Then I remembered - I was in the basement watching it when my parents called me upstairs to share some news with me.  They told me my dad had prostate cancer.   I was 14 at the time, and I didn't know how to respond.  Mom and Dad were pretty calm in sharing the news with me and led me to believe things would probably turn out well. I listened to what they said and then went back downstairs to watch the movie.  I cried on the couch - confused and scared. My dad had surgery and the cancer was gone. All things considered, perhaps the best cancer journey one could ask for.  I often forget my dad is a cancer survivor. It was a small blip on the timeline of our family, though it didn't feel like it