My folks had a saying for everything. One that I continue to use is, “It could be worse.” A few months ago, we had one of those situations. A little before 11 a.m. I walked out of the house and slid into the car to attend a family bridal shower in the local bank’s community room. Ken was working in his garden. When I backed out of the garage, my husband was sprawled in the grass next to the driveway and his forehead was bleeding. I immediately stopped and rushed to his side. He griped, “I tripped on that down spout, fell and hit my forehead on the cement.” He got up and walked over to sit on the wooden steps in the garage. I got a towel for him to stanch the blood flow and phoned our son, who is an EMT. Kurt was here in less than ten minutes. I left for the shower. Soon, I received a text that they were on their way to a Monroe Clinic Urgent Care facility in Freeport to have the gash sewed up. After Ken received six stitches, they returned home. He showed no signs of a brain concussion or broken bones.
Whenever I’m dealing with a difficulty, I feel like I’m keeping company with Joe Btfspik, a character in Al Capp’s satirical comic strip, “Li’l Abner,” which ran in newspapers from 1934 to 1977. Joe, who dressed in black, and had a small dark rain cloud hovering above his head, was well-meaning but he was the world’s worst jinx who brought disastrous misfortune to those around him. When I’m trying to convince myself, “It could be worse,” I often wonder if there’s someone in the world beset with a catastrophe so terrible that it couldn’t be any worse.
How do you deal with the problems of your life?