I'm not normally a big fan of what has come to be known as "country" music but every once in a while someone really breaks out of that mold to impress me:

The words are more important than the pictures...
both are included here.

www.youtube.com/watch

If I Had a Daughter
By Terri Hendrix & Lloyd Maines

If I had a daughter, I’d tell her that the first breath of life is the easiest. From then on out it takes years of practice. Cause if you know how to keep air in your lungs then you’ll survive when fate tackles you, rubs your face in the Astroturf, and grinds its cleats into your back. I’d tell her that it’s better to be out there on the field of life takin’ hits and makin’ touchdowns than bitchin’ about the game in the bleachers.

If I had a daughter, I’d teach her how to face life and its peaks and valleys with grit, modesty, hope, compassion, and love. I’d want her to accept herself. I’d want her to watch the stars instead of her weight, love her body, feed her soul, dance with her curves, see those blue veins as a masterpiece, howl at the moon instead of her hair, and to live inside out.

If I had a daughter, I’d teach her to hold her head high and strut through this world as a “more than” instead of a “less than.” She’d trust her voice, speak her mind, and seek the truth. Cause if it talks like a duck and walks like a duck then yes, it might be a skunk.

If I had a daughter, she’d know that gay or straight, pin-striped or polka-dotted, tye-dyed or solid, straight-laced or bent, she’d have my acceptance and blessing in regards to whomever she gave her heart to. If I had a daughter, I’d give her a compass so if she was lost, she could find her way back to reality. And when her soul hit the low notes and her heart was a kick drum, I’d teach her how to turn it into song.

If I had a daughter, I’d want her to be willing to venture into the great unknown. But I’d make sure she had the blueprints to build her own universe. If I had a daughter, I would carry her with me in every breath of every moment. I would wake with her name on my lips and go to bed with her dreams in my heart. If I had a daughter …

...was the gist of the email circulated here at work...he apparently died last Thursday.

I knew he had been sick, seriously sick, but all the talk in the office had been that he would eventually return to work.

This is sort of a stunner for me, we are/were about the same age. He was a strong guy, and seemed so full of life whenever I would run across him on the job site. We didn't work together on a regular basis, but we had crossed paths several times over the last couple of years.

I don't know if there's any connection at all, but he went down to respond to the devastation left after Hurricane Katrina.
He was down there a long time, because of his skills as an equipment operator and his "make do" ability, he would go from one
repair job to another along the Gulf Coast.

According to Jim, as soon as he got one facility restored, they would call for him to get onto another facility repair...and that's the way it went for weeks on end, I'm not even sure how long he was there...

When he came back from that trip, he was sick.

He said it was something "like leukemia, but not exactly leukemia..."

Jim, you will be missed, buddy...nobody could fill your shoes.