Smacked in the Face

Sometimes life just smacks you in the face. Hard. And it wakes you up and makes you come to a realization. This happened to me on this beautiful sunny day as I was playing with my Webb at the park. A bunch of us mothers were visiting and playing when two of us sat down for a minute to chat. This friend of mine has a husband who was recently diagnosed with cancer. They have been through a lot and are now facing months of chemo, radiation, surgery, and the possibility of the husband either walking with a cane or being confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. I started with just small talk and I mentioned that Chris had been out of town for a while and how hard it was to take care of Webb by myself. I was complaining some about how hard it can be and how I couldn't wait for him to get home. It didn't even hit me that I should shut up until she brought up her husband and how he can't help her take care of their children anymore, how he's resting all the time, and has to be in a bubble almost so he doesn't get any germs. She talked about how she is the sole income right now, how she just grabs dinner on the way home so they can eat and enjoy family time since he can't help her rangle two toddlers while she fixes dinner. She talked about how tired she was, how devastated they were, and how they just prayed for the future to look as good as possbile. The hurt in her eyes was unbelievable. Damn. I walked away from that conversation feeling so badly. I have absolutely nothing to complain about. My husband isn't ill. My husband will be home in a week and life is resume as normal. It will be years . . . maybe never until their lives resume. Upon my offer to help her with anything, she said all I could do was pray. I gave her my word. And then we agreed to go out for a margarita some time. Life just smacks you in the face sometimes and I'm glad it did. It puts a lot of things into perspective and brings you back down to reality.  God just works that way, huh?