Editor’s note: for the next two weeks we’ll be running the best of our This Ordinary Day pieces. We’ve enjoyed working with so many great writers and wonderful people and felt it was high time to take a look back at some of what they’ve brought us. If you’d like to see more pieces, please take a trip over to our archives page — it’ll be well worth your time.

— — —

Come outside. You’ve got to see.

I was numb. Painfully numb. It had only been a few hours since, at the edge of morning, we had stood together at my dad’s bedside as he took his last few breaths. The shell of the man I had known all of my life was still just down the hall.

C’mon, you guys. You’ve just got to see it.

After he was gone, we had prayed and cried and leaned on each other, physically and emotionally.

And then we scattered.

My brother had fled north to the pond — Dad’s pond. As the dark of night gave way to the gray of dawn, a startlingly white egret took off from the bank and circled the pond, coming so close to my brother that he could hear the wind in its wings.

I had wandered to the east where I watched the gray give way to purple and then blue and red melting into yellow. The tall prairie grasses were silent as morning arrived in a world without my Dad — a world I had never known and had not expected to encounter for many more years. As the meadowlarks and mourning doves called to their mates, the sun broke over the horizon.

My aunt disappeared down the lane to the south. My husband headed northwest into the prairie. My mom stayed with his body. She insisted on bathing him for the last time by herself.

Morning arrived bright and clear. Slowly the light drove our worn bodies back into the house.

You are not going to believe this.

She wasn’t going to give up. She grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. The others followed.

She led us across the front yard and behind the tall pines that whispered in the breeze of a brilliant October morning. She led us toward the shed where Dad’s toys — a ski boat, the RV and his tractors — were housed. She veered to right and kept walking until we passed Dad’s woodworking shop where he had created detailed doll houses for his granddaughters, where he and his sons had spent hours completing any number of projects, where his own father’s woodworking tools now resided. And we kept walking until we rounded the corner at the back of the shop.

Look, my Dad’s sister whispered.

A small patch was left unmown right behind the shop and, in that wild space, bronze tall grasses and lavender prairie flowers had flourished. Milkweed and musk thistle moved gently in the breeze. But that slight movement could not account for all that was in motion.

Butterflies perched and clustered on every plant. A Mourning Cloak fluttered over the tiny patch of meadow and a Painted Lady or two danced on the breeze. Monarchs chased each other over our heads. Yellow Sulphurs and Wood Nymphs lazily flitted from one flower to the next. A Zebra Swallowtail and a cloud of Red Admirals joined the crowd. At least a hundred butterflies had congregated along the back wall of the shop.

The four of us stood, slack jawed, in awe.

My Dad died of ALS. I knew nothing of the disease before he told us of his diagnosis. This is not what I would have chosen, but this is the hand I have been dealt and I will play it, he wrote to his children and his sister just after the initial diagnosis. A trip to the Mayo Clinic in January made the death sentence official.

ALS slowly leaches the ability to move from its victims. First he lost fine motor skills in his legs and then his arms and hands. He lost the ability to feed himself. He couldn’t breathe as deeply, so speaking became difficult. He lost gross motor skills. He lost the ability to turn his head, to nod yes or no. In the end, all he could do was blink. But the disease does not impair the mind. As his body slowly went limp, he was excruciatingly aware of what was happening.

We were told we had three to five years. We were given only 10 months.

We laughed and we joked and we adapted to the changes that we saw every week. We teased and we cherished and we cried all 10 of those months. We carried on just as we always have. Nothing was so awful that we couldn’t laugh. In August, after my sister-in-law’s double lung transplant, she and Dad exchanged pictures via e-mail… a grinning but pale Karlene with all of her prescription bottles in front of her appeared on Dad’s computer screen and, via Mom, he fired back a picture of himself… with what was left of his smile behind the drug bottles arranged in two rows on the tray of his motorized wheelchair. When his speech became so garbled that we couldn’t understand, we worked at learning how to quickly narrow down the possibilities: Does it begin with a B? A D? A P? A T? A V? We learned to anticipate when he needed us to spread his fingers on the arm of his chair so they wouldn’t cramp. Eventually, when the difference between a nod and shake became indistinguishable, we even communicated through a new language… one blink for no and two deliberate blinks for yes.

In the end, we were grateful for those 10 months — for the warning that came both too early and too late.

When we have done all the work we were sent to do, we are allowed to shed our bodies, which imprison our soul like a cocoon encloses the butterfly and when the time is right we can let go of it. Then we will be free of pain, free of fears and free of worries — free as a beautiful butterfly returning home to God…. —Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Dad died on October 2. As his friends and family slowly arrived for his memorial service a week later, the butterflies continued to gather, too. More every day until thousands of butterflies covered his 37 acres of Kansas prairie. They fluttered and danced and lifted our spirits. After his memorial service, those who came by the house were mesmerized by their vast numbers and sheer beauty.

Throughout the following week, family members returned to their homes and their lives. Relatives from across Kansas loaded into their cars and departed. My cousins left for Michigan. The number of butterflies in the fields dwindled. My youngest brother and his children returned to Arizona. My mom’s sister headed back to Topeka and the five of us were again alone. By the time we parted company at the end of the week, the butterflies were gone and the weather turned cold.

Two years have passed, and they have not returned.

This may seem like an odd entry for a site dedicated to finding the beauty, the peace, the blessing in the moment, but I’ve never felt more blessed than in the moments I spent out in that field photographing and cavorting with the butterflies. They sometimes landed in my hair or settled on my shoulder as I tried to capture their beauty. At a time of great sadness, at a time when the cloth of my life had suffered a huge rent, I found peace and comfort and the tools I needed to mend while I sat alone in a crowded field.

This Ordinary Day remembers:

Karlene Garinger

My brother’s wife, Karlene Garinger, lost a 14-year battle with a killer disease last week. LAM, Lymphangioleiomyomatosis, is a rare disease that affects only women. It is characterized by an unusual type of smooth muscle cell that invades the tissues of the lungs and, over time, creates holes in the lungs, preventing them from providing oxygen to the rest of the body.

Two years ago, Karlene received the miracle of a double lung transplant. Three weeks ago, she caught a cold or the flu. As her body fought this minor illness, it went into overdrive and began attacking the lungs as well, resulting in rejection and finally death.

The previous two paragraphs don’t begin to capture the fight that Karlene has put up all these years. I wish each of you could have met her and been inspired by her as I was. She was the sister that, as a child, I had always envisioned.

This is the eulogy that I delivered at her memorial service on Saturday. It is the most difficult thing I have ever done.

— — —

I didn’t want to be here today.

I’m pretty sure none of us wanted to be here. In fact, I’m pretty mad that we have to be here.

When I heard that Karlene was in the hospital, I immediately sat down and prayed. A few days later, I heard that she had been taken off the ventilator and that she was home. My prayers had been answered.

But then came the news that she was back in the hospital. That she was back on the ventilator. This time, because I had just finished reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, I sat down and wrote a petition to God. Like the character in the book, this time I didn’t ask that God’s will be done. That’s what I always done in the past. Instead, I asked for what I wanted.

I was specific.

I wanted Him to give Karlene the strength to fight off this attack on her body once again. I wanted this attack to spur some kind of miraculous healing spree. A friend who had also read the book and I talked. I read the petition to her. Again, like the character in the book, she helped me think of all the people who would want to sign my petition if they could. Ned, Kenna, Nate, Jessica, Doreen, Carl, my mom, Brent and all of his family, my brother Steve and his family, Jeff and Jack, my family… David, Erika and John, Caitlyn, my mom, our family in Michigan: Aunt Jeanette, Ralph, Eric and Beth and their families, Aunt Thyra and Uncle Dick, Rolan and Kevin and their families, my friends Beth Janice, and Debbie…, the list was quite long… and we didn’t even list the people I hadn’t met yet, the lunch ladies, the high tech friends, all of Kenna and Nate’s friends… I knew that all of us would sign a petition to God on Karlene’s behalf. In fact, every time you prayed for Karlene, you were added to the petition.

I’m sure of it…

We all know how this story ends.

And I hurt, and I’m sad, and I’m mad.

Karlene officially became a member of our family 25 years ago. Honestly, she became a member of the family before she took the vows and put on the ring. She was forever a part of the family after the months she spent sitting at Ned’s side as he healed after a serious car accident.

Karlene became the gentle soul of our family. She was the one at a family reunion who you most wanted to just sit and talk to… she listened so carefully. She told you with her eyes that she really heard what you were saying. She asked questions that told you that what you said mattered to her. She never forgot a birthday or an important date.

But Karlene was sometimes hard to be around… she was just so darn perfect. She never yelled at her children (at least not in public). When they were in trouble, she would calmly tell them what was wrong or take them away from everyone… I guess only Nate and Kenna can tell you what happened in those moments. I was never the cool, calm parent that Karlene was. And what I learned from Karlene about giving birthday parties for children… well, let’s just say that the quality of Caitlyn’s birthday parties definitely improved after an idea session with Karlene.

And then there was the disease. LAM. The shortness of breath, watching her move slowly as she worked so hard and with little complaint to be a part of everything possible.

And there was the day she asked me how she should pick when to die. Should she have the transplant? She should wait longer? The clock starts ticking as soon as you have the transplant, she told me. The average lung transplant patient lives only five years. When should she start that clock?

I totally let her down. I had no advice. I cried and she comforted me.

She comforted me.

Oscar Wilde believed that there are only two tragedies in life: not getting what you pray for and getting it.

Actually, our prayers are always being answered. Karlene’s prayers and ours have been answered with a resounding “yes” so many times. We just don’t like to think that “no” is a reasonable response to our very reasonable requests. The deal is this… we don’t like “no”s… in fact we like “no”s from God less than any other no.

I guess what we need to remember is that the miracle I asked for, the petition you all signed with your hearts, couldn’t be granted because we had already received it. The miracle was Karlene and the many blessings she brought to each of us.

Today, as we reflect, we need to be thanking God for the blessing that was Karlene. We need to remember the ways that she touched each of our lives. She taught us to keep our families close. She taught us about fighting for your life. She taught us how to make the people we love feel important and cherished. We need to contemplate, remember and incorporate these lessons into our own lives and, in doing so, keep her memory alive and with us always.

I don’t remember who said it to me first.

“Never say ‘thank you’ in a thank-you note.”

Maybe it was one of my grandmothers shortly after a birthday…

It certainly could have been my mom back when we didn’t live close to relatives.

I don’t remember who said it, but I’ve never forgotten the advice.

It doesn’t even seem like good advice when you first say it to yourself. What do you mean I can’t say “thank you” in a thank-you note!? That’s crazy!

But when you stop to think about what you would say, the wisdom of it suddenly becomes clear. If you can’t just say thank you, you actually have to think about the gift and how you are going to use it and why you appreciate it. You might have to tell a story about this one time, before you had this gift, and the ridiculous, sad, scary things that happened… all because you didn’t have it yet.

The best thank-you notes leave you satisfied and a little smug. They let you know that the recipient of your gift didn’t just receive the gift, he or she “gets” it, understands that you worked to create or purchase something just for him or her. The words stay with you clear into the next day. And a month later, when you find that envelope still on your dresser, you can open it and feel good all over again.

That’s one of the best things about a hand-written, non-electronic, delivered-in-the-mail thank-you note. You can keep it, carry it around with you, read it again on a bad day or maybe take a quick peek at it in a coffee shop.

I really appreciate a good thank you note. My oldest daughter Erika… she gets it. When she got married last summer, she wrote the best thank-you notes. I was worried that maybe she wouldn’t like the gifts we chose for her… I mean, they weren’t on her bridal registry or anything. They were just pieces that I thought would look great in her amazing dining room. And then I showed them to my mom… and my brother… and my other brother… and they each picked out a piece that coordinated with the three pieces I had already purchased. They got several silvery, modernistic serving pieces that should look terrific in her dining room. But I mean, really! What had I started? What if neither she nor her new husband liked them? It was going to take the entire backseat of her SUV to return all of that stuff!

The note didn’t come right away. There was the honeymoon and lots of gifts to open. And lots of thank yous to write. But when it arrived, it was perfect. And in her perfect thank-you note, she let me know that the serving pieces were perfect in her dining room and that she knew that I was behind the shower of silvery, modernistic serving pieces and that they would always make her think of me.

Perfect.

But that sets the bar pretty high. Even by my standards.

I have a note of my own that I need to write. One that I have been putting off. Not because I am unappreciative or ungrateful, but because this note has to be perfect.

Because the gift was perfect.

Dear C.J.,

I can’t even start this note without tearing up. Your note about me and your experiences in my classroom sent me flying back in time. I read it during yearbook class. I had to turn and face the wall so that my students wouldn’t see my tears. But they weren’t tears of sadness.

From your first story in Beginning Journalism, I have loved to read your words. You use them so carefully. Rewriting and rethinking until the words flow together in a silken sentence that creates a vivid image. You choose words that set the tone of the moment, that force the reader into the scene or the situation. If the reader, like me, lived that moment from a different angle, the words have a physical impact… they leave you breathless or wistful or teary… or all of the above.

But to read about myself… to see me through your eyes… was scary and wonderful. Your senior year was a tough time… for you, for the newspaper and for me. Talking to you in my office after you didn’t get the editorship that you thought you owned was one of the toughest “chats” of my career. I thought the world of you and was shocked when your first interview was so… nonchalant and unimpressive. I thought that perhaps you were sick. Surely you would do better if we just gave you another chance. So we interviewed you again… and again. And then I saw your face in the days that followed that announcement. Well, I guess that’s not true. I didn’t see your face. You wouldn’t even look at me. I remember our talk in my office clearly. I think it was almost as tough for me as it was for you. I have cringed over the years at the memory of it.

To read your entry last month lifted a burden that I have carried with me since that day in my office. I don’t know if you realize how important those words were to me.

I have been so blessed in my career to work with many talented students like you… several of whom, like you, write for This Ordinary Day and rank way up there among the students I remember most vividly. You, Becka, Sam and Jacky all taught me lessons about life, about journalism and about people that I carry with me today.

I am not sure that I really deserved all of the kind words, all of the kudos, that you expressed, but I was touched by them and I will keep them.

I printed your words out.

I keep them in my jewelry box next to the brooches and earrings I inherited from my grandmothers.

And every time I open the drawer, I know that I can open the envelope and read your words again… even though I already know most of it by heart. Every time I read it, it’ll be like stepping into a time machine. I’ll get to travel back and revisit you, the quiet young man with the shy smile who grew up a great deal in my classroom. I’ll get see not only that young man, but myself, through your eyes.

And you need to stop by sometime so I can give you a hug and tell you how amazing it was to watch you lead from the back of the room, to see you remain true to yourself during a rough senior year and how privileged I feel to have played even a small role in your life’s successes.

As ever,
Cough

P.S. There’s a new C.J. in my Beginning Journalism class. He wants to be a sports writer when he grows up. I think you need to be his mentor.

Susan (Cough) sent this note to C.J. the old fashioned way before it ran here.

Today is one of those days. You know the ones. They go like this:

“OK, class, today we are studying libel. I have prepared a PowerPoint for…

“Ummm, the projector doesn’t seem to be working. No problem. Instead we’ll go back into the computer lab and begin work on an independent study unit. Log in as…

“Six of you can’t log in? I see. No worries, let’s try…”

After struggling to find log-ins and coordinating passwords for the final six, I notice a student, one of the ones whose computer works all too perfectly, watching a booty-shaking, Shorty-gettin’-low rap video.

My voice shoots up an octave.

“Brendan,WeDon’tWatchMusicVideosinClass…andYouOweMe$6…25centsFor EachCussWordThatJustSpewedIntoMyClassroom.”

And it goes up another half-octave more into the screechy “Nightmare Before Christmas” kind of voice…

“You’veAlready FinishedTheUnit? DidyouREALLYReadIt orDidYouJustSkim? AnswerTheQuestions? YouDid? JustSitQuietlyThen.”

Then the bell rings.

Today was that kind of day.

I spent all of seminar just signing students in and out of my class. For an hour and a half, I wished I could have recorded my words so I didn’t have to repeat them.

“I need your pink ‘here’s where I’m heading’ form. While I am completing your Green Card, please make sure you have signed the Student Accountability Clipboard. We’ll need to make sure that the Green Card and the Clipboard agree as to what time you left. Don’t forget to sign back in when you return and give your Green Card back to me. If you are planning to leave the room again, we will need to repeat the entire process. Yes, you can have a paper clip to attach your Green Card to your shirt. Yes, I know it sounds like you are an illegal alien seeking legal work status…”

AndThenItWasLunchTimeAndIReallyJustNeededToGetOutsideOfTheBuilding. IRushedToTheDoorAndTheMostAmazingThingHappened.

Iopenedthedoor,

theairrushedtowardme,

Isteppedoutside

and the sunshine hit my shoulders .

A l l o f a s u d d e n,

I j u s t s l o w e d d o w n .

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With the nearly five inches of drizzly rain punctuated by a few sudden cloudbursts (and, yes, a few tornadoes) that drenched Kansas City in the past few weeks, everything is beautiful here… green and slightly squishy. The mornings dawn as crisp as a Jonathan apple with temperatures in the high 40s. When I get up the moon is still bright, when I escape the building for lunch, it’s bright outside. Downright cheery.

There’s something about fall that I’ve never really appreciated. We’ve just come out of what we always perceive as the relax-in-the-sun, “let’s-go-on-vacation” days of summer. The pool no longer calls to us. I don’t feel pressured to make sure I am having a good time. Fall makes me slow down. Makes me take time to notice the leaves’ slow transition from green to gold to orangey-red. It forces me to notice the changing quality of light as we move from the brilliance of summer to the stark shades of winter. The prairie flowers have dressed the land in autumn’s earthy shades. The garden calls to me, offering the final harvest. The pear tree challenges me to find uses for its fruit. The Ziploc bags of applesauce stacked in the freezer speak of tiny apples too small to peel but too numerous let fall to the ground.

The dark days of January are the ones we see as a time of reinvention and renewal. I have never been good at New Year’s Resolutions. There’s too much on my plate, too much pressure. I’m too tired from celebrating Christmas and the New Year and the likelihood is too great that I will fail. But fall… fall is slower and so much safer. Transition is in the air as we anticipate the beauty of frost-etched windows and a snow-blanketed world, all while clinging to the warmth and lushness of summer. I’m summer lean right now (well, as lean as I’ve been for a while). Rather than work to diet away the excesses of the holidays and the layer of fat I put on in winter (to keep me warm, of course), I will start now just to avoid the whole thing. Rather than wait until the organizational sales of spring cleaning, perhaps now, at the beginning of the school year, is the more appropriate time for me to get my filing system organized, to get those notebooks put together, to throw away the things that clutter my desk and my life. Rather than catching up, I’m choosing to plan ahead.

Isn’t that what autumn, the season of the harvest, is all about? Saving the bounty of this season to tide us over. Capturing summer’s season of growth in a little bag of applesauce. Organizing and planning ahead. Preparing for the busy-ness of that comes with the holidays by taking time to breathe now.

Gotta go. I’ve got a sunset to watch.

The vet called today. Our cat’s liver has completely shut down. He said her numbers are off the chart. I don’t know what the chart is and how high or low the numbers are, but I know that’s bad news. He said that we are going to need to “put her down.”

She was a Christmas kitten given to my daughter Caitlyn by Santa. We — well, actually Santa — left Caityn a Beanie Baby kitten and a note that told her that she could pick out the real thing at a shelter. Santa was not aware that not many kittens are born in the winter. We had a hard time finding kittens. But a shelter in Lenexa had several, and this beautiful Calico kitten with tiger markings stole our hearts.

We named her Taz… as in Tazmanian Devil. As a kitten, she was a whirlwind. Think Tom Cruise in Risky Business. She would run into the kitchen chasing a fly, a snippet of paper, a piece of string or the wind and then sli-i-i-i-ide across the floor. No tightie whities, of course. Anything on the floor that could be moved was chased, tossed into the air or tackled. Shoestrings and ankles were, of course, fair game.

We brought her home on a sunny day in late January. Although our Golden Retriever, Buttercup, and Taz hated each other on sight, we wrapped Taz (a little spitfire) in a towel, petted Buttercup and then petted Taz. We let them sniff each other (which generally resulted in hissing from Taz and a low growl from Buttercup). But after sweating it out for four hours, the two accepted each other. The next night, Taz slept curled up in the long hair of Buttercup’s tail. They have been buddies ever since. We have loved watching them chase and play and dart through the house. We have listened for the sounds of them thundering through the house in yet another mad game of chase and attack. It’s amazing how gentle a large dog can be with a tiny kitten or a small cat.

Taz is young … only 8. We had planned on having her around for many years to come. She is not your typical cat, aloof and stand-offish. She demands to be petted and will crawl under your hand if you don’t get going fast enough. She knows exactly what she wants you to do … rub and scratch right behind her ears and then down between them. Oh sure, she will LET you do some intense rubbing on the top of the head if you really want to and you will be rewarded with eyes closed in slits and by quiet purring. Don’t even think about rubbing her belly or giving her more than just a quick slide down the back. Failure to remain focused on her head and ears and maaaaaaybe her chin will result in a quick nip. Not a bite, no broken skin, no blood. Just a quick reminder of what’s proper care and maintenance.

I don’t want to tell Caitlyn … maybe because that will make it that much more real, more final. I couldn’t sleep last night so I sat up with Taz and petted and whispered to her until about 3 a.m. I told her that she would be fine, that cats have nine lives and she still had plenty of them left. She doesn’t look bad until you look in her eyes and then you can see that she is suffering. Even then, as I tried to convince both of us that we weren’t going to need to say good-bye, I knew that my promises were empty.

The vet’s call this morning made my words lies.

I hate this.

I’ve always been with my pets when they die. I stayed with Maggie (a Malamute/Shepherd mix I call a Malamutt) until she stopped breathing at the vet’s. I stood by the sink where my cat, Sasha, chose to curl up and wait for death. It came quietly in the wee hours of the morning.

It’s always so hard. And I don’t know if I can do it again.

I know it is silly to be so upset. There are such bigger problems in the lives of people I love.

Color me particularly blue today.

P.S. Taz continued to decline. She meowed pitifully at me when I went down to pet her Sunday morning. I held her close for several hours Sunday night. She seemed a bit stronger. As I left for the first contract day of the school year on Monday, I knew she was worse. Much worse.

We took Taz back to the vet that evening. I asked if he was sure about the diagnosis. Could the diagnosis be wrong? Could there be any hope? Was she suffering?

He told me that it was time to let her go.

Today I missed my alarm. Not by much… only about 30 minutes. But those 30 minutes made the difference between being on the plane or being left in Kansas City.

I realized the evening before my flight that I had poison ivy on my arm… and that it was growing at an alarming rate. I ended up spending four hours waiting to see a doctor at after hours care. Somehow the people with broken bones and bloodied head took precedence. Those four hours were precious packing time and I ended up getting to bed only a couple of hours before I needed to get up. Maybe I just should have stayed up. Then I wouldn’t have missed the alarm.

I got to the check-in counter 25 minutes before my plane’s scheduled departure.

I’m sorry, she said, you are too late.

I was already panicked… even before she delivered the sentence that I knew was coming.

You are too late.

I was only five minutes too late. Couldn’t they just take me anyway?

You are too late.

It rang in my head. And the mind chatter began…

ButMarthaIsMeetingMeAtTheAirportInCharlotte.IHaveToGetAholdOfMartha. WeHaveToGetToColumbiaBeforeTheWorkshopBegins.IHaveToCallKaren.

WAIT… HowMuchIsItGoingToCostMeToRebookMyFlight?HowWillIPayForIt?WhatWillIDo?

The 10:15 flight has already been canceled for today, she politely informed me.

OH MY GOSH! The next flight has already been canceled. I am going to be incredibly late.

But the 3:35 flight has open seats and is a direct flight arriving in Charlotte at 7:50 p.m. If you’ll just give me your ticket, I can make the change.

Ok… how much is this going to cost me?

Oh, there’s no charge.

NoCharge?

No Charge.

N o C h a r g e.

N O C H A R G E !!!

In the current economic climate, I certainly did not expect that. At a time when airlines are instituting extra charges for those who dare to take a suitcase, I didn’t really believe that this courtesy had any chance of being extended. I had already checked online and knew that the cheapest price for the ticket was more than $600.

No charge.

And then I called Martha. Martha lives in Charlotte and is the director of student housing for the workshop. I told her that I was indeed coming but had missed my flight and would be arriving more than nine hours late.

I expected a long pause.

I expected her to begin mentally and verbally rearranging her day to deal with my lapse.

I was afraid she would say that because of her other duties at the workshop, she would have to work out some other way for me to make the 90-minute trip between cities.

I expected her to inadvertently cause me to feel like a big, irresponsible jerk. Mostly, I guess, because I was already feeling like a big, irresponsible jerk.

She didn’t miss a beat. Susan, that’s wu-underfawl. You hev just given me a whole daay that I did not expect to ha-eve. Think of the things I kin do with it, she said in her easy North Carolina drawl.

There are some people on this earth who I swear live to make others feel bad about their mistakes. Who are quick to judge and quick to make others feel guilty for doing something as stupid as missing the plane.

And then there are the Marthas of the world. She made me feel like my tardiness had been the best gift she had received. She told me that this was awesome. She told me she had plenty to keep her occupied… nothing that she had planned to do, but several things she’d be grateful to have off of her list. She took my mistake and made me feel like it was a blessing.

Because of Martha, when I returned home to wait for my next flight, I didn’t stew about my error. Instead, I accomplished things. I took some items to the post office, FedExed some additional materials to the workshop and repacked my bags a little more carefully. I was there when my daughter came home from summer school and got to hear a little about her Phys Ed. class (the second day) and we chatted a little before she took off for the movie theater with friends.

By the time I actually got on the plane, I was relaxed. I slept nearly the entire way to Charlotte.

When Martha met me at the airport at nearly 8:30 p.m. (even my plane was late!), she told me of the quilt that she was able to complete… the unexpected windfall of a day with nothing planned. She listed all of the things she had been able to do because I missed the plane.

I wish I could be more like Martha. I need to take the time to see the blessing in the error, to find the silver lining in the cloud. I need to be more forgiving. More gentle with people… both the people who matter the most in my life and the people who work the window at Burger King and don’t quite allow me to Have It My Way.

We make choices on how to face the issues that confront us each day. We can fuss over the cost of the mistake. We can moan over the changes that will be required because of the error. We can count the number of times an individual has created problems and the number of times we have been inconvenienced. We can even berate the person or ourselves for being unable to accomplish the expected task.

Or we can be like Martha.

My goal for this week is to find opportunities to practice the lesson that Martha taught me today. I hope you’ll join me. Let’s look for the blessing in the inconvenience, the talent required to roll with the punches, the joy of making someone feel okay about an error… even one as big as missing the plane.

I’m looking forward to a great week. Let me know how it works out for you.