I have a ritual that I do every morning before I get out of bed. I reach over and feel my husband's shoulder move up and down, up and down, up and down as he breathes. I thank God for this movement, for the warmth of his body under the covers. I know we have another day together to raise our girls and I smile before I even open my eyes. Then I move my feet under the covers and become consciously aware of the warmth and comfort of my bed. Next, I envision all the people waking up on the street somewhere outside the picturesque town that I live in, cold and dirty and alone. I force my mind to picture them waking up without a soul in the world caring that they are awake or asleep. In my mind's eye, I surround them with the light of God and pray that someone will walk past them and offer them a cup of coffee or breakfast.
This morning I did not do my ritual. My nose was too stuffed up, my head was pounding and my hacking cough was going to wake my girls us waaay to early. So I lay in bed and felt sorry for myself for having this annoying cold for four days and now we were looking at day five. I waited until the last minute to wake up my oldest daughter and then jumped back in bed as she made her way into the bathroom. At breakfast she asked me why my face was blotchy and why I had two fleeces on over my pajamas. I told her I was still sick and I had the chills. When she and her sister left for school and my little one was content with the bag of pretzels she requested for breakfast, I climbed back in bed for a morning of mindless TV. The mess in the kitchen, piles of laundry and unmade beds made me sigh with sense of feeling burdened. I climbed back into bed and zoned out to reruns of "Beverly Hills 90210" thinking back to college and watching this in my dorm room without a care in the world. "Those were the days" I thought to myself.
Then I checked my Heartworks email account and the gift of awareness was handed to me as it so often is when it comes to Heartworks. There was an email written about Whitney, a woman who has been living with cancer for a few years and I have gotten to know through Heartworks. The update this morning was that she has been in the hospital all week and is really struggling, She has painful sores in her mouth and throat that are keeping her from being able to eat. She is in a lot of pain and her family is struggling because her daughters want to visit her, but she is in such tough shape they don't know if it's the right thing to do. I thought about her lying there in the hospital bed with those sores in her mouth. I thought about my stuffy nose. I thought about her daughters being at school yesterday and the Valentine's Day parties in their classrooms. I spent my afternoon at one and watched my 3rd grader rummage through her bag of valentines. I realized I had forgotten to be grateful for this. I thought about what Whitney would give to be up and walking around, clearing the breakfast dishes and doing the laundry and making beds. I turned off the TV just as the gang was arriving at the Peach Pit. I got my ass in the shower and thanked God for the warm water and the ability to stand up. I washed the dishes and said "Thank you" out loud as I rinsed each one. I threw in a load of laundry with a smile on my face, made the beds and read my youngest daughter a book I find dreadfully boring, but is one of her favorites.
The Heartworks emails continued to show up on my screen throughout the day ... A prayer request for a 4-year-old with cancer, a mom living in poverty, just across town who needs bottles for her baby being born next week, an opportunity to send a care package to a soldier at Walter Reed Medical Center, recovering from having his limbs blown off in Afghanistan. I sucked on my cough drops, took aspirin and drank orange juice. With every story emailed to me, my fever felt like it was subsiding. When someone is sick, people often ask me "What can I do?" I usually give them an answer they are not expecting: "Live your life today to the best of your ability. Take nothing for granted and be grateful for even the most mundane and boring tasks. Do this as a way to honor all the people who would love to be doing what you would tend to complain about today." This morning I had to walk my own talk and it saved me from missing a day of living in gratitude for my health, my family and my piles of dirty laundry.Thank you God; thank you, Whitney; thank you, Heartworks.
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