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My mother always made it look easy.  She was always joyful, strong, outspoken, loving.  Her greatest gift was her booming, window-rattling laugh.  (Her least appreciated gift was her loud, off-key singing voice, which I inherited.)  I think she never wasted a day, even though she spent way too many of them on her back in a hospital.  Even those of us who lived close to her forgot that she lived every day on the verge of death from a bum ticker.  (Her first open-heart surgery was in 1954, a very crude affair.)  She was way too busy living and playfully enjoying the company of those she loved.  

 

Once, after a brutal, experimental open heart surgery that left her rib cage wired together, her biggest complaint was that it hurt when she laughed.  (She also called me to her bedside one evening while she fiddled with a spot on her chest and announced, “Look at this,” as she squeezed an errant piece of wire through the skin, displayed it on her thumbnail, and laughed.  Gross.) 

 

My point:  Many people might say that my mother’s life sucked.  Technically an invalid from the age of 35, she could have whined and carped.  But she ignored all that … and had a ball.  Her life was full — full of joy, full of love, full of happiness.  She was always grateful for her blessings and rarely griped about her problems.  She had a gift for seeing the silver lining in the row after row of storm clouds that passed over her life.  Amen! — jri

 

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry

        –    Jesus Christ

               (Matthew 6:25-27)