Last week was rough. The news of Kobe Bryant’s death along with his 13-year-old daughter, her teammates, their parents, an assistant coach and the pilot was just devastating. So many lives gone in an instant and it all seems so unreal.

We’re SUPPOSED to live until we are old and crotchety. We’re SUPPOSED to live to see our great-grandkids grow up. We’re supposed to grow to the obligatory old lady hairdo age.

But that’s not reality. Reality, unfortunately, is cancer, fatal accidents, suicide, tragic violence, terminal disease and heart attacks. None of us are immune to the bad that can happen in the world but yet we live as if we have all the tomorrows in the world.

Maybe that’s how it should be. I mean do we really want to live as if tomorrow won’t be coming? Would you really live life to the fullest that last day or would you hide in your room under the metaphorical covers? God, I would like to say the former but I think the latter is more accurate.

I have three kids: one in college, one in high school and one finishing up his last year of middle school. As my kids grew up (and still growing) and I started to see their personalities develop, I was excited to see what they became passionate about. What they would choose to do with their lives and how they would be amazing citizens of this big world.

But with every tragedy that happens, I just want to grip them by the back of their necks like a mama lion and pull them back into the den. I mean, I DO want them to go out and be their awesome selves but dang..can they do it wearing bubble wrap? Can they go out, do awesome things, then come home at night to be tucked safely in their beds.?

Soar but stay close. Grab the bull by the horns but for fook’s sake, don’t get hurt! You can do anything but are you sure you don’t just want to do it within 30 miles of home?

I want both but I can’t have both.

Why is parenting is so fricking hard?! We wear our hearts in their backpacks, tossed into lockers, backseats and God knows where for so long that you’d think we’d be used to the stains, bumps, and bruises. But it’s never easy to love beyond anything that could possibly be measured.

So all I know to do is to love them hard while they are here. Every chance I get, I’m going to tell them I love them, hug them, even if they stink (99% chance they do), and cherish the time we have together. I have no idea what tomorrow brings but I know how I can approach today.

I could let bitterness, anger, annoyance or a blasé attitude run my day into the ground or I can intentionally choose grace, joy, love and forgiveness to ride along in the front seat. That’s not always easy but it IS always a choice.

I pray it doesn’t take another tragedy to remind us.