Last February, my Dad broke his ankle while walking around the construction site of his home in North Carolina. He has an active lifestyle so I knew a few months of bed rest would be hard on him. I decided to go out there for a week in March to help him out.

I thought I would just be there for moral support, but the 20 inches of snow that dropped just before I showed up changed that. It was difficult enough to walk around in the snow for me and I had a pair of unbroken fibulas, so for that week I did a lot of holding my arm around my dad to help him navigate the snowy and icy paths.

He had a contractor and a small construction crew at work on the house. I found myself dipping into my southern accent and excising three syllable words from my vocabulary when I was talking to them.

I never noticed myself doing this before until Ceinwyn pointed it out to me. She thought I was making fun of them.

Here he is on his crutches and also seated at the BBQ place where we watched the UNC – Virginia Tech Game. You can see the look of concern on his face that UNC was only leading by 10 points.