Perspective

I spent about an hour yesterday chatting with a friend. We talked about the usual things that two single parents talk about; kids, schedules, ex spouses, as well as our social lives...she has one...I have HBO...

Anyway...we were both having bad days...neither of us were dealing with anything of great import, just a series of little things that were dragging us both down. We were having a bitch fest...and then my phone rang. It was my brother.

My brother-in-law, a man in his mid fifties, was suffering from small cell lung cancer. He was a biker, and he very much looked the part. A big man, chemotherapy and radiation had made him a shell of his former self. I last saw him at a family gathering in March. He told me that the end was soon.

My brother called to tell me that our brother-in-law died the night before.

My sister is now a widow and my niece lost her father....

The universe force fed my friend and me a very large does of perspective.

When I used to complain about something very trivial an ex girlfriend used to ask me "is anybody going to die?" (it seems sometimes that what wisdom I possess has been gleaned from the women I have dated...)..anyway...she believes that if you use death as a standard anything else is manageable...and so it is.