JamesAsh.com

I have a habit of letting little things bother me.  I can deal with a problem.  I have trouble dealing with a lot of problems.  When I was in college, we used to mess with this guy that liked to park his truck under our window.  We’d throw water at him or ketchup or anything else that was convenient.  One day, to get back at us, he released 200 crickets in our room.  The crickets hid all day long.  But at night, when I was drifting off to dream and the room got to just the right temperature…

CHIRP! CHIRP! CHIRP! CHIRP!

I flew out of bed to fight my enemy, the lowly cricket. I turned on the light and spotted him in the middle of the floor.  I quickly captured him and threw him out the window.  From there, it was rinse and repeat all night long.  Crickets chirping and me frantically trying to find them and rid my room of the nuisances.  Had it just been a solitary large insect, I could have dealt with it. Having to deal with hundreds of them was just too much for me to take.

A couple of days ago, I filled my gas tank.  Five miles down the road, I am idling rough.  It kept up here and there for a few days until my car stalled last night.  A few short minutes later, my check engine light came on.  Dread and mild profanities filled my mind as I think of 100 things that could be wrong with my car.  It had already been a rough shopping trip full of encounters with various stereotypes that I try to avoid.  I creep home, hoping and praying my car doesn’t die on the way before finally pulling into the safety of my carport.

I finally manage to get my car to the mechanic after lunch for them to take a look at.  It’s just a busted hose – an expensive one – but a busted hose, nonetheless.  All of the other problems that I had been facing were minor as well and mostly resolved themselves over the course of the day.

Meanwhile, my daughter’s godmother was giving birth to her second child – a little girl with a head of hair named Emory.  But Emory, as they found out in the prenatal tests has a hole in her heart and she doesn’t have a pulmonary artery.  They are going to have to fly across the country for her to have surgery on their newborn.  Then, as their baby grows, they will have to keep having surgeries to continue to replace the piece that they have to put in her heart.  I can’t imagine what they are going through – the joy of having your newborn that is quickly replaced with worry as she is wheeled away to the NICU.  I’m hopefully that things will all work out. That Emory will get to open presents next Christmas.  And the Christmas after that. And walk. And say “Ma-ma.” And go to school.  And write her name. And so on and so on.  It’s all you ever want for kids, be it your own or those of the ones you care about.

We all have problems, worries, troubles, and concerns, but if we look around, there is always someone going through something that makes our pale in comparison.  To those of you facing real battles in your life, keep your head up and keep fighting the good fight one day at a time.  Your strength inspires the rest of us more than you could ever imagine.  Thank you.