Just a Split Second
December 2, 2013 was the day my life changed forever. My daughter Riley Amore’ McGee was born. She’s a little over 2 months old now, but since then, it has truly been a game changer. On the night of February 8th, 2014, a few guys went out to celebrate my bro having his first child. It was a “Man Baby Shower” and we had a BLAST! In lieu of having a great time, a few awkward things happened as well. Probably about 3 random strangers walked up on us and interrupted our games and then IT happened. The most mind-blowing thing I’ve seen. I mean, I’ve seen mind blowing things before, but mind-blowing from the perspective of me being a parent now.
This kid, a boy who couldn’t have been older than 5 years old, walks up to our pool table. “Oh, he came with his parents?”, you probably just thought to yourself. NO, HE WAS BY HIMSELF! That’s what was mind-blowing to me. It’s well after 9pm on a Saturday night and a 5 year-old boy wanders into a pool hall. As this was happening, I just began to think to myself... "I'm so glad we have just a little bit of sense. What if we were into the whole kidnapping thing? This would've been too easy." This hit even closer to home as I couldn't stop thinking about my own daughter and how much more careful I need to be once we begin going out to public places like this and she's able to walk.
Checkout the video linked to this post which is a campaign for a huge wave of kidnapping that has been taking place in Malaysia. Nearly 5,000 kids were reported missing last year. A statistic such as this is ridiculously alarming especially in lieu of the entire human trafficking epidemic. Let's be extra vigilant and sensitive to perfunctory moments such as these that can cause a lifetime of pain, sorrow, and regret.
