Making Lemonade

Making Lemonade

I am the baby in our family and ever since I can remember, I knew that I had a sister who was born and died before my brothers and I were born. I don't know how we all knew or how my parents managed to tell us about their massive personal tragedy. There were no pictures on the walls of Elyse, no keepsakes around for my parents to look at. That was just too painful for them. There was a little suitcase with a few of her things, but it was hidden away in the basement. Her short life was just a fact that we grew up with.
It wasn't until many years later that I could have some understanding of the terrible loss my parents had to go through and at such early ages (my mother was 22 and my father was 25 when she died). I thought to myself, how could they go through that, remain sane and go on to having 3 more children?
My grandfather, for whom my mother was very close, died when I was 3 months old. This, too was such an overwhelming loss for my mother. I don't think the real magnitude of it hit me until my mother was taken from us many nearly 10 years ago.
Despite the massive tragic events in her young life, my mother was incredibly optimistic and appreciative of each day. She would often quote the famous one liner, "Live today as though it was your last" and constantly say that "without health, all the money in the world is not going to make us happy." She embedded in us the value of waking to each new day and standing on your own 2 feet as a gift, not to be taken for granted.
From the stories I was told, my grandfather (my mother's father) was very much a positive person as well. He had a great appreciation for life and doing good was far more important than being rich. He had a true 'Joie de vivre', a delight in being alive. He showed this in many ways, one was the way he ate, sharing much of his food with his clothes. This trait was handed down to my mother, my brother and my aunt. My grandmother always knew when my grandfather went to the horse races and not to his factory. He was bald and wore a hat, but at the races, he would take it off and his head would get sunburned which was something he couldn't exactly hide in their apartment. His enjoyment in going was such that it was worth the argument when he got home.
I have no doubt that my grandfather's inhaling of all that life had to offer was the greatest gift he could give to my mother and she, in turn gave it to us, her children; and I sincerely hope that I have been successful in endowing that same gift to my daughters.
As I wrote above, our lives including our childhood always consisted of the shadow of the tragedies that befell my parents. These did not make our lives gray, but always played a role in how we lived. My own life has not been spared either both in terms of losing loved ones and the constant of dealing with health issues. I almost said a battle of health issues, but chose not to. For me, it is dealing with a new reality each time a new health issue pops up and together with my wife and daughters, we adapt our lives to the new reality. This view of our circumstances and the choices we make to handle them is what guides our lives.

Life inevitably deals us all some lemons. It is at this time that each one of us has to make a choice. And it is a choice, not about what happens but about how we choose to deal with it. For most of those occasions in my life, I choose to take those lemons and make lemonade.

And here I want to share one of my favorite quotes and one of my favorite poems.

“Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...It's about learning to dance in the rain.”

ATTITUDE

by

Charles Swindoll

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.  Attitude, to me, is more important than facts.  It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think, say or do.  It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill.  It will make or break a company... a church... a home.  The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we embrace for that day.  We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.  We cannot change the inevitable.  The only thing we can do is play the one string we have, and that is our attitude... I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes”