This time it was a root canal - totally unexpected pain - but it had to be taken care of. Two days ago it was food freezing instead of chilling in the refrigerator. Again totally unexpected, but it had to be taken care of. Then the CD player decided to choke itself on the disks and, although not an emergency or painful, it was just another broken item that had to be dealt with.
So there I was, Helen, sitting in the dentist's chair complaining about all these upsets after he granted me an emergency appointment for my sore tooth. Besides all this, I am scheduled for knee replacement surgery in less than a week. "I don't need this" I complained.
As the dentist drilled he began to muse aloud - not chastising me - just musing. "Be optimistic" he said. "We live in America. Everything can be fixed." He continued, "Where I came from in the middle east, things break too, and they can't be fixed. People just learn to live with them broken. When I go back there and tell my family and friends how I live here, they think I live in Heaven or some fantasy land. They wouldn't tell that to their government or an outsider, but they tell me what they really think. We can fix anything here in America; if we can't, someone will soon invent a way to fix it."
He may not have been chastising me, but I saw myself in a different light. How ungrateful, how spoiled I was sounding. We've become a culture where we think things shouldn't break, things shouldn't go wrong; for that was the core of my complaints. Of course, I know things break, but unconsciously I've absorbed the culture that thinks those things only happen to other people. They shouldn't happen to me.
I remember about 15 years ago a doctor told me I wouldn't been walking by now. Two minor surgeries over the years and I carried on, now it's time for a knee replacement. Someone invented something better and I'll be better than ever in a few months. That's something to be grateful for.
A call to my home warranty company put me in touch with a refrigerator technician who will be fixing the problem. No spoiled food. Only a few hours out of my day which I can usually schedule without harm to business. Isn't that wonderful!
A call to my dentist produced an emergency appointment during his lunch hour and with his up-to-date equipment, the root canal was taken care of within 45 minutes. Of course, there is more work to be done, but that can easily be taken care of on a non-emergency basis a month or so from now. No pain, no worry of infection after surgery. Problem solved!
On a larger scale, we're grateful for living in a country where security can be taken for granted. A while ago during a warm, wonderful fall evening we had a visitor from out of town. After dinner we wanted to show off the great monuments of Washington, DC. We almost burst with pride when we conduct this tour. We decided to show him Grant's Memorial just in front of the Capitol Building. Since it was after 10 pm the traffic was just about non-existent. We merely parked in the front of the Capitol with our flashers on and proceeded across the street. Before we got to Grant the car was surrounded by Capitol Police on motorcycles with flashing lights. We suddenly realized that our car looked like an un-attended suitcase at the airport. Red-faced and chagrined we crossed the street and apologized. Very politely we were asked to not ever do that again. Here we are at war, yet we feel so safe we don't even realize it. Please understand that was no excuse for the careless parking. We're merely realizing how protected, how secure we feel and how much we have to be grateful for.
Who are we that we can live better than Kings and Queens of old? We're average, middle-income Americans. And that is something to be grateful for.
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