When you get up every day and the news on TV is bleak, you look for a sign that something is going right in the world. It seems like the whole place is going to hell in a hand basket lately. All you hear about are high gas prices, a poor economy, and campus rage. Closer to home the day can be just as bad. My father has spent the entire week in the hospital. He had a lung biopsy performed on Monday so doctors can ascertain how advanced his pulmonary fibrosis is. On Wednesday night, Maggie came down with a fever. Crappy week. Crappy month. Where was the miracle of restored health and a great economy when I needed it most? Then I remembered the signs I saw earlier in the week. They were small signs, but they were there.
Late Monday afternoon Nora suggested we make "Pi" a get-well card. Maggie jumped up, and together the two of them hit the computer and printed off two Disney "get well soon" cards. They spent the next half-hour coloring their handiwork, and stuffing the self-cut cards into envelopes. On Tuesday night I went to visit my dad. When I returned home late that evening, Maggie was still awake. Acutely perceptive and sensitive, she seemed to know something was amiss. As soon as I comforted her, she drifted off to sleep. In both of these small gestures my children were exhibiting love and empathy. For a moment I forgot all the bad numbers and facts that bombard me on a daily basis and realized that the world is not caving in. Goodness is around us all the time. No lightning bolt here. No great leader to change our country. It just took me knowing where to look and who to listen to.
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