Sarcophagus

Growing up, when we took family vacations, my mom always tried to make them educational for us.

We would have a word of the day or something that we had to remember and she would test us all throughout the vacation and even after we got home.

When we took a trip to Hearst Castle, the word for the day was Sarcophagus. I think I was in like 4th or 5th grade. To this day, when I hear, or use that word, I go right back to that vacation.

She didn’t stop with just Jeff and I. When we all vacationed in Washington D.C. a couple of years ago, she had words of the day for us then too. I think it kind of drove Courtney nuts being tested at the end of the day, but she survived.

Last night Courtney was telling me that the learned about Pompeii, Italy. She was telling us about the volcano Vesuvius and how people, and even dogs, died. Scott told her how her uncle Ricky has been there while he was in the navy and even has pictures. After she was telling us all about this, I asked her what year that happened in. She said she couldn’t remember. I told her that when she comes home from school today, she needed to tell me when it happened.

She looked at me and said she would just go upstairs and look it up right now, because she doesn’t know how busy she is going to be today. Either way, I got my answer and she looked it up.

Then I started thinking about my mom and the things she did. Everything was a lesson. And while I hated it then, she did make memories and I did learn things that have stayed with me for forever.

I laughed to myself. Scott looked at me wondering what I was laughing about. I just shook my head.

Sometimes, you just have to be in my head for a few minutes for things to make sense. But there are words of the day in there, floating around, just waiting to be used.