A Young Widower's Tale
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Aidan the weed and it’s your attitude that makes life worth living Aidan is growing like a weed. We took him into his two week check up yesterday. Already the kid has gained 2 lbs. and grown 1.5 inches. Overall he’s in great health and eats every chance he gets. I tell Marathon Girl he eats enough that we should turn him out to pasture and let him be a free range baby. I need to get him away from Marathon Girl’s influence when it comes to baseball though. The other day we were sitting on the couch watching the news and they showed some highlights from that night’s Tiger’s game. Marathon Girl starts telling Aidan to root for the New York Yankees. Yikes! Kids can be soooooooo easily influenced at this young age. Fortunately this week there’s a Detroit Tiger game on TV (a real rarity here in Utah) and Aidan and I are both going kick back and watch it. *** Several years ago a friend (who I’ll call Sally) fell in love with a wonderful man. Soon after meeting him, they decided to marry. However, marrying the love of her life would require some changes. He was employed out of state. Starting a new life with him would mean leaving her friends, family, and town she grew up in behind. Though it would be difficult leaving, she felt she was doing the right thing. They were married and moved away. For a long time, I didn’t hear from Sally. Then, little by little, I began hearing occasionally from her. She was miserable. Though she loved her husband, every time I heard from her she complained about the neighbors, her job (or inability to find the perfect one), or the town she lived in. It appeared that nothing could make her happy. Looking at Sally’s life, I could see that in some respects her life presented some challenges: living in a somewhat isolated community, finding a decent job, and getting along with the neighbors. Yet it also struck me that most people would love to trade places with her because her life wasn’t that bad. She was well educated, had a lovely home, a faithful husband, and was living on one of the top-rated communities in the United States. Unfortunately Sally was unable to see how wonderfully and richly her life had been blessed. Instead she looks through life from the prism of what she doesn’t have or what she wants and can’t have. It makes it so I don’t look forward to hearing from her because every time she talks it was just one laundry list of complaints after another. So why am I writing about Sally? Yesterday I caught up on a diary I haven’t read in a while. In the last month, this person’s husband has been diagnosed with cancer, her father-in-law had a brain aneurism and is now in a coma, and numerous other things seem to be happening in her life. She’s experiencing real trials and hardships and has every reason in the world to complain about life. Yet despite all she’s been through the last month, she’s going through it all with a positive attitude, counting her blessings (she’s pregnant with their second child) and knows that things could be much, much worse. So if you have a minute, send some prayers and good thoughts to Libbyo. I hope the trials she’s currently experiencing comes to an end. No matter what happens, however, I’m confident that her attitude will do more than anything bring her through the dark days into better ones. You Can Now Purchase Room for Two - 2007-08-31 |
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