You’re invited to Come Go With Me.
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about my father-in-law, John Archer, and contemplating one of his favorite phrases. Come go with me, he used to say.
He was a family practice physician in the Texas Panhandle for almost 40 years, back in the days when doctors made house calls. When the phone rang in the middle of the night, John headed out the door in the darkness, carrying his black doctor’s bag. It contained all sorts of instruments and medicines that he might use to help someone who was sick or injured.

When I came into the family, it struck me how hard John worked and how little extra time he had to spend with his family, whom he loved immensely. It seemed he was always on call and always working. Leisure time was almost non-existent.
Desperate to spend time with his wife and five (yes, five!) children, John enlisted them to accompany him any chance he could. Come go with me, he used to say, when he needed to visit a patient in the nursing home or go to Sears to get a spare part. There was always something that needed fixing.