Fun Monday - Accomplishments

This week's hostess is Southern Doll and this is what she wants. Sort of a reverse bucket list - or would that be a tsil tekcub?





What have you done in your life that was worth doing? I want to know the moments in your life that you hope will be the ones to pass through your mind when your time comes. I hope that doesn't sound too morbid. This doesn't necessarily have to be items you have checked off your Bucket List, it can be those small moments that made you smile, or the time you got that huge promotion you deserved, or the first time your baby smiled at you out of pure joy. I want to know all the moments, big and small, that make life sweet! If you don't already have a running list of these in your mind, you should! These moments help you remember how much your life is worth living, and we all deserve to enjoy it.



I have done a lot of thinking about this one and I have truly been amazed at some of the things that I have done. This is due, in part, to one of my previous jobs. I was a police dispatcher for a number of years and have had some truly life-saving and life-ending calls. My favorite, though, is just about a little girl.



I was working afternoons when a little girl called and said, "My name is Sally Sue Schimmelpennick* and I just got home from kindergarten and my mommy is not home". I asked if she had looked in the house and she said yes. I asked if she had looked at the neighbors and, in that voice that children reserve for stupid adults, she said, "I am not allowed to leave the house without my mommy's permission and I can't ask my mommy because she is not here". I acknowledged that she was right and asked her if she knew her address (this was pre-911 and addresses were not hooked to computers and phone numbers). She told me what street she lived on and said she did not know the number. I asked if there was a piece of paper or something in the house with her address on it. She asked me if I could hold on for a minute and she would go out on the porch and look at the numbers on the front of her house. I said that I would. She came back on the phone and gave me the numbers. I dispatched an officer to check on the child and see if he could help her find her mommy, staying on the phone with her until he got there.



Several minutes passed after the officer arrived at the address. He came on the radio and said, laughter in his voice, that Mrs. Schimmelpennick wanted to thank the very nice lady on the phone and that if Sally Sue had bothered to look in her own back yard, she would have found her mommy gardening. Mrs. Schimmelpennick called me later to apologize. I told her that it was unnecessary and that Sally Sue had done exactly what she was supposed to do. All in all, just a nice call with a terrific outcome.



I believe that it is in the little things that we make the greatest difference. Sally Sue, at a time in my life when I was in danger of becoming cynical and jaded, reminded me that there are those moments when everything does go right and there is a happy ending.


*names have been changed because I am old and cannot remember the child's name and because the name Sally Sue Schimmelpennick amuses me.