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End of summer reflections on life, hope, love

Wow, where has the summer gone?

Autumn is just around the corner, and I thought I would reflect a bit on the odd summer I’ve experienced and how the power of positive thinking can be very beneficial in our lives. If I feel the need to blame anyone for these incidents, I choose to blame the 17-year cicadas.

It began in spring when my daughter-in-law came down with the shingles. That was quite odd, because she is only 34 years old. OK, then I became very ill and went to MedExpress, where I was informed they could not help me. I needed the emergency room of a hospital. The week that followed had me at that ER on three different days; I actually thought I was dying, and I was fine with that. I had told my husband to tell the kids that I loved them all. (If you would like to look up this verse, it’s one I was thinking about, Psalms 62:5-8).

Underlining everything that was going on in my life, my sister-in-law was fighting a much bigger battle of her own — one that started around three years ago and has definitely shown me how super-strong the human spirit really can be. She spent three and a half weeks in New York this summer, between Sloan-Kettering Hospital and a nearby hotel. She is my superhero. We had every friend and family member praying for her. At the very minimum, I’ve said a daily prayer for her.

Well, I’m still here folks, so I recovered. Now it was my husband’s turn. He had a total hip replacement done at New Albany, Ohio. We knew for the last couple of years that this was necessary. As the caretaker of the “patient,” I must admit that I was scared for him. This surgery is now done outpatient, so within 12 hours he had a new hip, learned how to get in and out of the car, tackle steps, exercises and was back home. Oh yeah, he had to get out of the car every 30 minutes to walk around. You can bet I was praying! It began raining hard during his recovery room time.

“Oh, Lord, please allow this rain to stop before we hit the road. How can I get him out to walk in the rain? Help!”

And so I kept my faith and hoped for the best. In biblical terms, hope is closely allied with faith. Hebrews 11:1 — Faith is “the assurance of things hoped for.” Guess what? When we got on the interstate the rain slowly stopped, and I felt so relieved and thankful. The next four weeks I felt as though I was a nurse, without the degree or pay of course. This is what you do for one another in your family life. William John Bennett said, “A kind and compassionate act is often it’s own reward.” Mother Teresa said it best: “It’s not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving.”

About three weeks into my husband’s recovery, I got a call from my son. His wife needed surgery at the James Cancer Center in Columbus. Now this came as a complete shock. You can ask any of my friends, I am usually a very positive person. I see the cup as half full. For a split second I said, “What else can go wrong?”

Oops — rewind — redo. I feel like I hear God telling me that he will never give me more than I can bear.

Off to Columbus I go to sit with my son during the surgery. While in the waiting room I noticed a changing screen on the wall giving cancer stats that I found alarming. It stated that one in two men and one in three women will experience cancer in their lifetime. As I wandered around this hospital, I noticed things that broke my heart. It made me realize that the things I had been going through were nothing compared to their sufferings. Thank God my daughter-in-law’s tumor was not cancerous. She is recovering quite nicely.

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today (Thich Nhat Hanh — Buddhist monk). Every day that you even wake up means you’re alive! Open your eyes and see this beautiful world, you have vision! If you have limbs, you can walk! Now if you can open your mouth and speak, thank God for all of this!

And remember, there’s a lot of truth in the old adage, “Those who laugh … last.”

Debbie Karras is a St. Clairsville author and speaker on domestic violence and abuse issues, and she enjoys writing human interest articles. She is currently working on a book about life lessons to pass on to family.

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