A Little Perspective

Tonight was Miss E's Daisy meeting. That's her on the right with her friends R and T. They were playing with a box of Kleenex. Yes, to a 6 year old girl any single thing can be that exciting if you have friends with you. This is probably the wildest and craziest group of girls around and blows any stereotype of girls being quiet and calm out of the water. They laugh, climb on tables, climb over each other, talk loudly, do cartwheels inside, run up and down the halls. Truthfully most of the meeting was spent getting them to calm down enough to learn our petal-lesson of respect. Respect for yourself and others. This is one of the things I LOVE about Daisy's. When Miss E is mouthing off to Peter or myself we can remind her that we deserve her RESPECT just like we learned at the Daisy's meeting. Of course we teach her that ourselves, but having it reinforced in a group setting is always a good thing. Sometimes I think that's why people like church so much.

Anyway. Tonight as we are getting started I asked our leader why she had taken herself off the calendar for kindergarten volunteering (in a nice way, not nearly as nosey or snarky as that sounds) and she told me that a few days ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer. CANCER. She has 3 children. She works. Her youngest is that wild, spirited, happy little girl in the middle of the picture above. She has no time for cancer, no space in her life for cancer but just like that, everything has changed for her. The worst part is, she had a clean mammogram 6 MONTHS AGO. The only reason she caught what is now Stage II cancer, is she accidently felt a lump in her armpit. Scary stuff people. Very scary stuff. The prognosis rates are very good for her but she still has to go through the treatment and the worry and the fear that this aggressive cancer will never go away.

It all puts a little bit of perspective on life, no? I mean, yes the kid's tantrums can be annoying and money is short and house cleaning can be drudgery but there are folks out there going through terrible things, real things, things which make all the other little annoyances seem like, well, the annoyances that they are. So I will go about my day with grace and perspective and revel in what a good year this is starting out to be for us. And I will know that life can change in a heartbeat, a lump or a phone call and be appreciate, and try to teach my children to be appreciative, for all the good fortune that we have.