Woodward, Okla. — Day in and day out we go about our lives, getting involved, and sometimes overly involved, in things that impact us every day. We start to take the little things for granted. Well, I guess they shouldn’t be called little things, as they are probably the most important part of our lives. But we start our days just like every other day, the alarm goes off and we get out of bed, get ourselves ready for work or school, and head out the door thinking about what lay ahead for us.

Throughout the day we meet with people, work on projects, and have discussion about this and that, we look forward to going home for the evening so we can watch the football game or our favorite TV show.

Unfortunately we get into this routine that just seems to engulf us until something happens to stop us and make us think for a minute.

I had one of those days last weekend which I would like to share with you. A couple of weeks back I was able to reconnect with an old friend using Facebook. Yes, I Facebook. And I “LOL” too, but not during this story. He and I hadn’t talked to each other since high school having gone our own ways. We grew up together in California playing baseball, our dads coaching us through our high school team. We both came from very close, tight nit families so it shouldn’t be a shock that we both wanted kids. We especially wanted to have a son that we could share that same bond of baseball with - teaching him the game that we so enjoyed learning from our fathers.

After high school, I got into the newspaper business, married and had two kids. One boy and one girl, both athletic, and enjoyed countless hours playing catch and coaching their teams as they grew up. My friend started the long journey of becoming a VP of a high profile sporting shoe company and is now living in London. Starting his own family a little later in life, his wife found out a few months ago that she was pregnant with their first child, whom they learned later was going to be a boy! The excitement was evident from both of them as they had dreamed of this for a very long time, especially my friend.

Last weekend, he let his family and friends know that his wife had to be taken to the hospital in the 32nd week of her pregnancy where she lost their baby. His pain was definitely apparent, while he began to question life, his faith and the reasons that these things happen to people. Their family and friends have been there for them trying to help them cope with this difficult loss.

In time there will be closure for them and they will be able to move on, but at the time that I found out about their loss, life stopped! I wasn’t thinking about the meetings I had scheduled the next week, I wasn’t thinking about politics or even what time I was going to start mowing the lawn that day.

I did start thinking about my kids that are still in California living their own lives. I thought about how I hadn’t seen them in the past 3 months. What they were doing? How were their classes going? Questions I’m asking even as I write this, so excuse me while I give my kids a call!     

Rich Macke is publisher of the Woodward News.