When life deals you lemons -

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Make lemonade! I know that is an expression that is used often in life. But it holds some sort of a truth. If we sat around all the time running our problems through our heads, we would be a nervous wreck or in the insane asylum! Many things in our lives make us wonder if we are the only ones going through such things. Our health is one of those things. We are hit with a bad disease, a break, or the death of a loved one and we feel like we are the only ones who have ever gone through the situation, although common sense will tell us that is not true. I remember when my Daddy was diagnosed with cancer. When you hear the BIG C, everyone pronounces you dead almost from the start. But when I heard that word, I thought, my God still heals and miracles are still alive. So that’s how I prayed and how I thought about the condition. Then, one day when he went to the DR while taking the radiation treatments, the Doctor told him and my mother that he didn’t have to take the treatments any longer because the cancer was all gone! He lived another 13 years cancer free. He didn’t sit around and moan and groan about having cancer even from the first. My mother has often told me that he said he wasn’t going to have it. And one day he didn’t any longer. When I fell on a bus tour in a restaurant and broke my hip, I was a fighter. I would not even stay in that town and let them take me to the hospital or even call an ambulance to take me home. I got on that bus with the help of a couple men and even sat up for 4 hours of the trip. Later, I had to lie down on pillows on the front seat and spent 7 hours doing that. My husband was amazed that I hadn’t even told him my hip was broke when I called him to tell him to meet the bus at a different point to take me to the hospital. He thought our life was over. I saw the situation through different eyes. Oh, I hurt terribly, but I knew it wasn’t going to get the best of me. I had to have a full hip replacement, but I was walking when I left that hospital and never had one day of rehabilitation. I went back to the doctor to have the staples removed and he had me walk without the walker. He told me to go home, put the walker up, and get out and walk – the more, the better. I started walking every day and got up to two miles. That has been over 7 years and I am still walking. But it was ‘making lemonade’ instead of pity for myself that got me where I am today. It is so refreshing to see people overcome their problems by looking at them with a different perspective than someone else who might be going through the same thing. When a person realizes that they are at the end of their life and still lives life to the fullest gives each of us a new look at life. I’ve seen it any several people in my lifetime. I suppose that is why I try to get through my problems without feeling sorry for myself when I’m down and out. As my grandmother once said to my mother from her hospital bed, “I will be okay while you are gone, and if not, everything will still be okay.” She knew she was on the path to a better life without sickness!