FMF: A commitment to a colorful run

RUN

I just checked my email records to confirm when I signed up for the Color Run Orlando. It was February 1. My daughter-in-law had texted me about it. I agreed it would be fun. I checked my calendar to see if April 23 (the date of the run) was open, determined it was, and signed up.

Wayne and I proceeded to put our plan in place for our trip to Sanford/Orlando so I could participate in the event and we could visit with Wayne and Patience. We reserved our AirBNB. We ended up deciding to leave from Sanford on Monday, 4/25, to go to Ft. Myers for Wayne’s work trip instead of driving back to Tallahassee just to have him turn around and drive back to Ft. Myers. Many interlocking pieces of this trip were in place.

Then, on March 30, I got a letter in the mail that I had long dreamed about getting: an invitation to be a guardian on an Honor Flight (a day-long event where veterans are flown to DC to be honored — it focuses on WWII vets). I’ve been essentially begging the Honor Flight people to take me for years. The pandemic halted flights for a few years, which also put a crimp in things.

But there I stood, having to decide whether to go back on my promise to my son and his wife and accept the Honor Flight invitation or to decline Honor Flight and do the Color Run (which we planned to walk, by the way — I can’t run anymore).

I emailed the Honor Flight people to decline.

It was a sad, sad email to send for so many reasons.

BUT: I had made a commitment to my family. In fairness to them, they asked first. I had no reason to believe after multiple rejections from Honor Flight that I would be accepted.

And when I am (if I am), they’ll know I keep my commitments, just like I did to my son/daughter-in-law yesterday. We had so much fun, as you can see below!

Welcome to this week’s Five Minute Friday. Our instructions, via coordinator Kate Motaung: “Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation.” (But I can’t resist spell checking, as you can imagine.)

Paula Kiger

Wife of one, Mom of two, Friend of many. My pronouns are she/her/hers.