There is a rule in my house called “No Red Plate Tuesday.” My sister and I once decided that eating from red plates on Tuesdays is unacceptable, and now we do not eat from red plates on Tuesdays. I’m the first to admit that it is a completely useless rule.

But there is another rule in our house that I make sure we abide by, which I refer to as the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” rule. It states that we must tell each other that we love each other every morning before we all leave. See, in any “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book, you will find a story in which someone’s parent dies. The children in question will be in a hurry one morning, and they write that although they make sure to tell their mother that they love her every morning, they forget in their rush one day. They say that they’ll tell her later, or hug her later, or whatever. But sadly, their parent dies on the one day they forgot to tell her they love her, and they never get to say it again.

Because I love my parents, this concept scares me. I know that not telling my dad that I love him won’t send him into a heartbroken, deadly shock, and that’s not what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid that any given day when I forget to remind my parents how wonderful they are could be the last I see them.