wake up calls

I’m not a morning person. I’ve never been a morning person. It’s only when the darkness settles that I become enlivened. And yet there is one thing that has always made my mornings brighter. There is one thing that can put a smile on my face at 7 or 8 or 9 a.m., times that I cannot fathom why the rest of the world is yet awake.
Those phone calls may not seem like much, probably more a chore than anything else, an obligation done out of fear that I will once again sleep through my alarms and miss some big important event. But those phone calls are so much more to me than that. It’s the one constancy amidst the chaos of my days. It’s my daily reminder of the inherent goodness in people and the tremendous impact that the love and kindness of one person can have on some many others. It’s the renewed faith that I can, and will, make a difference in someone’s life.
Each morning, the incessant beeping of multiple alarms is interrupted by an obnoxious ringing of the phone. But once I have sleepily reached across the bed and silenced the ringing, I am greeted by a voice of familiarity and love. The “fact or crap” questions of the day that I always get wrong, the silly jokes that are so ridiculous they actually make me laugh, the lectures on the healing effects of water and bread….all seemingly trivial things, yet such an integral part of my daily life. On the rare occasions when I am not awakened by a phone call, I feel some tiny emptiness that is carried with me throughout the day.
Until the next morning, the phone rings, and I am again reminded of how blessed I am to be daddy’s little girl.