Last Weekend was EXCITING! Really it was wonderful. I published the second novel in my Illusions series.
We also had a family reunion. Health kept my father from attending, but all my siblings were there. Most of their children (and ours) were there. Most of their grandchildren (and ours) were there. We have not been together for–well, I can’t remember the last time. We talked, we reminisced, we played games, we took family pictures in a cow pasture. It was so much fun.
But, and I hate that so often there is a but.
While we were gone, our basement flooded–a lot! Two of our sons pulled back the carpet, vacuumed the water, and started the fans. Then they came down to the reunion.
Then on the way home, another son had car trouble. So, we stopped at the cabin and spent the night. The next day we loaded his car on the trailer and started home together.
The story isn’t finished. On the way home, our pick-up threw a rod. I hate that I know what this is. I hope you never find out. I will tell you this: The pick-up is dead. The only way to fix it is to rebuild the engine or replace it. (And it is an older, high mileage truck. It’s not worth doing).
This meant that another of our sons had to come to the little town about 40 miles from home and hook the trailer up to his vehicle and tow it home.
We got home and the basement had flooded again. And today, with the help of one of our sons, we get to go and pick up the useless pick-up.
And I haven’t even mentioned the cost of this little weekend. Nor the fact that I somehow left my phone at the cabin, nor the complaint of one neighbor that caused the city to send us a notice about parking our trailer, when it’s not at the cabin, by the side of our house.
Two paragraphs about some really great things. Seven about some really awful things. But the good things were amazing, and look at how lucky we are to have four of our five living sons available and so willing to give us a hand. That has to be added to the good things, doesn’t it?
Still, I find myself thinking more about how to work through and recover from all the bad luck, and not nearly enough time remembering the good stuff.
How do you do it? Because, let’s be honest. Somehow this bad stuff will pass. We’ll fix the basement. We’ll live without a pick-up for awhile until we can save some money and find one we can afford. (We gotta have one while we’re renovating the cabin). Life will go on, and mostly our life is pretty wonderful. So how do we remember that? How do we think more on the connections with our family, and our achievements, and the kindness of friends and neighbors (who offer to help and loan us their chains and come-alongs)?
I’m sitting in my very comfortable living room in my really beautiful house, with a computer on my lap, and I’m writing. That needs to go in the good column. I am pretty healthy. In a few minutes I’ll go into the kitchen and eat. There is food in my kitchen–plenty really. We have a car. We have work we enjoy, mostly. We have family and friends. We have a lifetime of rich experiences and joyful memories.
Bad stuff happens, sure. And this isn’t anywhere near the worst we’ve experienced. But we have so much good in our life. I want to remember that, even in the midst of the difficult times. How do you do it?