Somewhere on some hard drive in some basement in central Florida, there’s footage of me crying. I’ve only been on the Jumbotron once in my life, and it was when I was 5 or 6, attending my first soccer game. About 60 or 70 minutes through, the camera guy directly in front of me laughed, wheeled this massive lens around towards me, and next thing I knew my face was plastered on a screen in front of thousands of people. Why? Because I was crying.

It wasn’t that my team was losing. In fact, I don’t remember who was playing or even what league it was. I was crying because no one was scoring. Thus was born my hatred for soccer.

On Sunday, my family will celebrate the one-year anniversary of the passing of my uncle David. I wrote the following post last year as my way of preparing for his funeral.

As a self-employed twenty-something bachelor, I’ve had the flexibility over the past 5 or 6 years to accompany my grandparents on their annual vacation down to Mexico. The arrangement is pretty simple: I cover the cost of my tickets and food, and they provide me with a room.

There have been a couple of years where even that significantly discounted deal has been a stretch for me financially, but I’ve always made it work for the simple reason that my grandparents are getting older and I never know the last time I’ll see them.