Grateful

Today, I took my oldest daughter to the eye doctor for her Strabismus (lazy eye). She sees a specialist because it is something that cannot be treated by a regular optometrist. The appointment was at 2:30pm and they get out of school at 2pm. So we rushed over there and sat down for a few minutes. I looked around the waiting room like most people do, watched my broken son play with another little boy, and remembered that a close friend of mine's daughter comes to the same doctor for her vision. My friend's daughter is a twin and she has a disorder that caused her bones not to grow right and a lot of her physical features didn't develop correctly. (Her dad says her brother took it all!) She is 4 years old and has had more than 30 surgeries. She is the most resilient little girl I have ever seen in my life.Then I remembered the other night when I was in the waiting room at the hospital. I AM SO LUCKY!!

I watched the ambulances pour in that night at the hospital and thought, "Man, if all I have is a broken arm or dislocated elbow, I can handle that." My child could have been that little boy that came in that had been mauled by a dog fighting for his life. He wasn't much older than my son. I could have been that mom who's daughter may have to have her leg amputated because she was in a car accident with her friend's parents. She was about the same age as my girls. I prayed and prayed and prayed some more.

Back to the eye doctor...I'm sitting there and a little girl in a wheelchair comes in with her mom and sits next to me. We start talking about our kids. Her daughter is 8 just like Tallynna and has never walked or spoken a word. She can only see 25% out of one of her eyes and the doctor is working on scheduling a surgery that will help her to have 50% in that eye and 25% in the other. While I was talking to the mom, she handled herself so well when she told me how lucky I was. Then she told me how lucky she is. It took every muscle in my face and neck to hold in the tears!

She said she wouldn't know half the things she does and she wouldn't have been as humble as she is now. She's a single mom. I told her I didn't know how she does it. She just said, "When you love something or someone this much, you find a way."

Tallynna was called back at that point and all I could say to her was, "Thank you!" She just smiled.

I am grateful for everything I have and don't have. There is always something worse and when I think it can't get any worse, I think about those that are worse off than me.