I Learned You Make Your Own Happiness
This is a story from my Nan's life. She is a wonderful woman.
The news tells us that other people have it much worse than us, so we should simply smile at our lives, and live them happily.
My Nan fell on her own porch at Christmas the year just gone. Her son was having a family Christmas with his wife's family, and she hates my Nan. So, we invited her to our house for Christmas. She was all set to come up by train. Then she fell. Hospital took her, X-rayed her, she fractured her pelvis but nothing badly broken.
She went onto a ward, eventually, and a nurse ignored her the whole time only responding with tea and food when asked.
The pain was intense, but my Nan has seen people all over the world with real suffering, so she gritted her teeth.
They discharged her. She was in so much pain. My sister went down to pick her up. She came, but was in such pain she could only sit, and we had to carry her up and down the stairs (dangerous!).
When it was time for her to go home, we didn't know how she would cope. She did, her friends from church came to see her. One of the many benefits of religion - community is real there, if you give you also receive. But she just just now told me. She had really strong pain killers. She thought that pain would never go away. She could not imagine a situation without that pain, in her future. She was so tempted to just take too many of them.
She did not. Because she knows many have it worse off, and they get through.
This is what taught me that the news can either be seen as depressing, or as great news for our own lives, that we are so much better off than others, and we have such a great opportunity to help them.
Best wishes, EP, you have taught me so many such lessons over the years. I love you all.
The news tells us that other people have it much worse than us, so we should simply smile at our lives, and live them happily.
My Nan fell on her own porch at Christmas the year just gone. Her son was having a family Christmas with his wife's family, and she hates my Nan. So, we invited her to our house for Christmas. She was all set to come up by train. Then she fell. Hospital took her, X-rayed her, she fractured her pelvis but nothing badly broken.
She went onto a ward, eventually, and a nurse ignored her the whole time only responding with tea and food when asked.
The pain was intense, but my Nan has seen people all over the world with real suffering, so she gritted her teeth.
They discharged her. She was in so much pain. My sister went down to pick her up. She came, but was in such pain she could only sit, and we had to carry her up and down the stairs (dangerous!).
When it was time for her to go home, we didn't know how she would cope. She did, her friends from church came to see her. One of the many benefits of religion - community is real there, if you give you also receive. But she just just now told me. She had really strong pain killers. She thought that pain would never go away. She could not imagine a situation without that pain, in her future. She was so tempted to just take too many of them.
She did not. Because she knows many have it worse off, and they get through.
This is what taught me that the news can either be seen as depressing, or as great news for our own lives, that we are so much better off than others, and we have such a great opportunity to help them.
Best wishes, EP, you have taught me so many such lessons over the years. I love you all.
36-40, M