How Fortunate I Am

Strange, no matter how sad or frustrated we feel when we wake up, the moment we walk out the door and feel the warm embrace of the sun our hearts suddenly smile. We take that deep breath and we're ready to face the day. Our wake up mood gets left behind as we close the door on it and begin our day.

I woke up thinking of my Dad's funeral tomorrow, missing him terribly. Then my thoughts strayed to my friends JG and his wife J.. who just had to terminate a six month pregnancy because of complications and my heart swelled with grief for them and for their unborn child who would never be given a chance at life, because it could never have a normal life according to all the specialists. I then realized how fortunate I truly am and once that sun embraced me and comforted me I let out a breath of relief. If feel selfish for doing so, yet I can't control it.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not smiling and laughing histerically...but I'm at peace within. The frustration and sadness I woke up with has lifted and has been replaced with acceptance and the knowledge that life goes on and we don't do any good to anyone by carrying that negativity around. If a smile goes a long way, then I'm praying that one of my smiles can bring the same peace to someone that the sun has brought me today.

I looked at a very powerful picture this morning. It was one of Kevin Carters Pulitzer prize photographs taken in 1994 during the Sudan Famine. It's a tiny child crouched and trying to crawl to the food bank, which is a kilometer away. There's a vulture in the back ground just waitng for the child to die so that he can feast on the tiny mound of skin and bones. Once again, I realized how very fortunate I am and as Kevin Carter said in his journal that day "I will never again let my food go to waste, no matter how full I am, I will eat it." Kevin comitted suicide about 3 months later due to depression.

I reflect over tiny portions of my life and realize that no matter how bad certain things were, I was never as unfortunate as my friends JG and J.., Kevin Carter or that beautiful little child who's tiny corpse eventually got devoured by the vulture. I also came to the realization that there's nothing for me to truly complain about. Life is filled with tribulations, some big and some small yet if we think about it even our big ones seem miniscule in comparrison to so many others. Again, how blessed I've been and how fortunate I am....