Sunday Thought - September 8, 2013: For Lack of Want

That's about 56 years ago, give or take. 

I look in that face and don't see the future that awaited him.  I don't see a comprehension of responsibilities that would change, impact, so many people's lives.  I see a little boy that wants to get down so he can play.  Eating the banana just isn't making it for him.

I had a pancake breakfast this morning.  I wanted to make cornbread and smother it with molasses, but the cornmeal I brought back from Mississippi had bugs in it.  I went to the store and bought pancake fixings.

I ate my pancakes while contemplating this photo.  Then I thought about how lucky I had been to have a banana back then--how lucky I was to have pancakes this morning.  My parents both worked and made sure there was food on the table.  Had I known how lucky I was to have it, I wouldn't have always tried to ditch the vegetables.

I got up from the computer and made a couple of fried eggs.

I could be wanting for food, hungry, poor, wondering where the next meal was coming from as I pick the lent from my wallet.  But, I'm not.  I have been blessed, as have my whole family.  Blessed to be able to provide for ourselves, to be self-sufficient, to buy a banana when we want to.

If you read this and find that you are also not wanting, consider how lucky you are to be in that position.  If you're approaching 60, think back to when you were 4, or 5.  Was it as great?  Did your parents put a happy face on the struggles they endured to put three squares on the table every day?  Or, did you wake up every morning in a cardboard box, in an alley, wearing ratty clothes and playing with a paper boat in some water filled gutter?

I look at that face and think of my children and grandchildren.  I think of how lucky they are to have a chance at making it, still amazed that I made it to this point.

I look at that face and don't see it in the mirror any more.  I stand in front of the mirror every morning amazed that I'm in such great shape for my age.  Other that the pin they put in my leg from the motorcycle accident, my body is scar free.  Other than the sonic removal of a couple of kidney stones, I've never had to endure major surgery.  I'm near sighted and my hearing is going, but I'm in pretty good shape.  Knock wood.

Take a moment this Sunday to reflect on who you are, what you have, and what might have been.  Consider how blessed you are in your life?  You may be living from payday to payday, but you are living!  There are those around you that wonder if they'll wake up the next morning.

I'm going to say a little prayer of thanks, of sincere gratitude, this morning, then I'm getting out of this chair to go outside and play.

I just may go get a banana.  Now, if I could just find a highchair...

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.

It turns what we have into enough, and more.

It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, 

confusion to clarity.

It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home,

a stranger into a friend.

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today

and creates a vision for tomorrow.”     - Melody Beattie