My thought today is about real problems.  Cancer.  A child dying.  Flunking a final. Bankruptcy.  Losing your job.

I have found that people with real problems fit into two categories where complaining is concerned.  Half of them groan like blue blazes.  The other half, not at all.  The complaining half seem overwhelmed, unable to cope, and hopeless.  Those who knuckle down with a grin-and-bear it attitude have an air of joyful optimism.

I  had a friend named Jane, in high school.  Help me out if you went to CCHS.  Deacon? Deakon?  I’m kind of embarrassed not to remember.  Jane wanted to be a nun, as I recall; and came from one of those large Catholic families of the 1950s.  (We were on the smallish side with only eight.)

Jane described her mother this way:  “My mom thinks life is a surprise birthday party, and she’s the guest of honor.”

I’m sure their family had the normal number of troubles.  No one in our parish had much money and they all had lots of kids running around needing shoes, food, new uniforms and other annoyingly necessary accoutrements of life.  But Jane’s mother always had a smile on her face and her arms up to the elbow in dish water.

My perennial role-model, my own mother, once gently scolded me for complaining that the nurses at Barnes were not taking good enough care of her.  “Even brain cancer is no excuse for rudeness,” she told me.  “And really, I’m all right.”

Made me think then; still does; so I’m going to make a cup of tea, sit on my porch, and think about it.  If you’re out walking in Brookside, stop by.