Grateful

I have spent the past two weeks or so extraordinarily stressed out.  To the point where I have definitely not been a peach to live with.  That fact has stressed me out even more than the actual sources of stress, and has caused me to be even less of a peach to live with.

This truth irritates me.  Embarrasses me, even.  But it's where I've been.

When I finally crashed (for the first time) tonight, my phone immediately buzzed in my pocket--the cake I spent the afternoon constructing and planned to deliver earlier tonight had been put off indefinitely as of about 5:00--the friend who ordered it had rushed her 9-year-old daughter to the emergency room.  The phone call (at 9:45) was her father calling to ask if he could pick up the cake.  In the course of conversation (and situating the cake on the front seat of his car...where a spider attacked the bottom layer, and his finger swiped the frosting across the bottom...buttercream is a wonderful thing), I learned that their Emily has pneumonia, but they feared meningitis when they took her in, and that she and 2 out of 3 of her siblings has Cystic Fibrosis.  Yep.  Three out of four kids.  And the fourth is a carrier.  He stood there and told me about twice daily breathing treatments and vibrating vests to break up mucous and serious concerns any time one of them starts coughing...wondering if their youngest son is getting lean too fast as he grows as this could be a bad sign.

I had no idea.

And the next words out of his mouth?  "Really, we're just so blessed.  We know it could be so much worse."

As I sat down again after he left, digesting what he said, I started my blogwalk.  Later than usual today.  I follow the blog of a woman who, along with her husband, was in a plane crash in which they were burned.  Significantly.  She much worse than he.  I'm not even sure how long ago.  A couple of years, I think.  At 33, she is easily the strongest, bravest, most incredible person I have ever "met," virtually or otherwise.  Find her here.  She had a massive surgery about a month ago to repair her neck, and she has blogged recently about her recovery.  She lives in agonizing pain every day.  She hurts when she hugs her children.  She spends months a state away from her babies, so anesthetized that she has no idea how much time has passed, and she counts the doctors and nurses as her closest friends.  And she writes nearly every day about how very blessed she is.  Just to have another day.

Tonight as I read, it struck me how very little I have to gripe about.

No matter how busy my schedule, no matter how much goes dramatically wrong, no matter how many arguments with my kids, crazy things that happen with car keys and wet clothes and chewed up shoes and budgets gone haywire...I sit here on my couch one very fortunate woman.  Blessed.  Loved.  Spoiled.

Grateful.  And determined to be even more so tomorrow.