Message

I gripe a lot. You reply, “Oh, Yeah?” with a snarky tone and feigned shock on your face. I KNOW. And I’m afraid I’m too old to change that, even though I would LIKE to.

Today, however, I read something on the local news that stopped me in my tracks and made me do some serious re-assessing.

There was a house fire overnight, around midnight. The house is apparently south and east of us. They didn’t give the address, just that it was on East Hickory Street in Greenwood.

Three people in a family died and a fourth was hospitalized. Two of the three dead were Greenwood students. They didn’t give the names, and this is all the information I have.

It’s enough for me to ask myself, “What in the WORLD are YOU griping about, when your family is safe, your home intact?” My gripes are merely annoyances. And yet I build them up in my mind to be so much bigger and more important than they are.

Our son is safe – as safe as anyone can be nowadays. So he hasn’t been home so I can hug him for several years. HE’S. SAFE. And we can talk to each other every day.

My husband is safe. Half the time I’m ready to toss him into the hole in the back yard. There is no one that makes me angry or hurts my feelings as much or as easily as he does, and yet HE’S. HERE. HE’S SAFE. HE. IS. MY. OTHER. HALF.

Only two examples, but you get my meaning. Priorities can get so skewed. We really need to seriously take stock and realize that, however annoying things may be at a given moment, things could be so much worse. REALLY.