The Cream of the Crop

Yesterday the Mitchell family started their Father's Day celebration in the traditional way. Breakfast, gifts for Daddy, and off to church. After church we took the man of honor to Cracker Barrel for fried catfish and a game of checkers with his Anni girl. When we returned home the two of them hit the pool while Mom hit the books, trying to finish an assignment that was due.

It was a nice day.

As the day was coming to an end, I went outside to check on the water bugs. They were out of the pool and Daddy was doing his usual thing; overseeing Anni's bike riding and bubble blowing or anything else Anni decides she wants to do. The connection they have is amazing to watch. She is, without a doubt, Daddy's girl.

Anyway, we have this small cherry tree in our back yard. I love to cook and it drives me crazy to waste free produce. James know this so he asked if I was planning to do anything with the cherries. Persuaded to act, last week I picked a couple of bowls of these little sour rubies and made homemade cherry pie filling. So I decided to pick another bowl before the sun went down and we called it a night. Anni wanted to help, of course, and she said, "Daddy, wanna help momma pick thum chaiweeth?" James said, "sure". When they got over to the tree James noticed that all of the best fruit was at the top. He said, "Man look at all those up there!" I said, "Yeah, but I can't get to them. Guess I'll just leave them for the birds." The next thing I know James pushes his way into the middle of the tree, grabs one of the upper branches, pulls it down and says, "here I'll hold the branch - you pick. You know this is a real find! You should blog about it." I realized he was right. Not about the cherries though.

Oh they are great, but nowhere near as great as the guy holding the branch. I know it didn't really matter to him whether I got the cherries at the top of that tree. He knew it mattered to me. It was Father's Day and he could have spent the day on the couch watching T.V. We would have let him. Instead he spent it doing what he does best; being Anni's Daddy, and being not only the love of my life, but my best friend.