November 9th

Today I'm grateful for the proportion of good things to bad things in my life.

So, once upon a time, when I was 16, it occurred to me that I'd never lost anyone. Other people around me had lost parents or siblings or grandparents they adored, and since I was old enough to really understand it, the only person I'd lost was my unborn little sister. Now, granted, that one hurt intensely, but 8 years later, I could remember how hard I cried, but not how the pain had felt. I had never been beaten, never been seriously betrayed, never really, really hurt. Oh, sure, I'd had bad days and disappointments and embarrassments and even a couple miserable, grumpy years while I tried to process becoming a teen, but no real tragedy.

At the time, being the melodramatic, story-driven teenager I was, I felt a little ripped off in the life-experiences department. I mean, how could I ever empathize properly with people who had experienced tragedy? And... well... I firmly believed that deep and awful pain was an essential part of everyone's life, so if I hadn't had it as a kid, how crappy was my adult life shaping up to be?

Shortly after that, Callia died. Callia was the horse we had had since I was... six, I believe. She was an integral part of my childhood, and my very best friend in the animal kingdom. I learned to ride on her, and when I was 15 and 16 was when I was riding her the absolute most, since I'd finally realized I was old enough to ride without supervision. Getting her to move was frustrating as all get out, but once I'd gotten her going, we would run at full speed through the whole of the farm - mostly in the yard and north pasture, but sometimes we'd go up and down the road, around to the back, out to the lake, around the corn field - I rode her wherever I could, and as often as I could convince my brother or dad to tighten the saddle for me (I might have been old enough to ride, but I wasn't strong enough to get the saddle safely attached to her girth).

When she was only about 18 years old, she got West Nile. Not a pretty way to die. It took her about a day, and I stayed with her for most of that time, my heart absolutely aching inside of me as she lost the ability to stand up, and began thrashing feverishly all over the barn floor. Earlier in the day I'd had hope that she'd recover, but about the point she thrashed and cracked her skull against the cement foundation of the barn, I knew she was dying and I had to say goodbye.

It was an interesting experience for me, and ultimately, I was grateful for it. I had to go through the process of grief that follows an intense loss, and I learned a lot about pain and healing.

Since then there have been other losses, disappointments, long periods of loneliness, mistakes, injustice, and all kinds of negative experiences.

But the good life of my childhood, ultimately, has stayed with me. I've had bad things happen, but a lot of good things have happened too. And when all is said and done, my life has been more good things than bad things. I have more happy days than sad days, and the good things are so much better than the bad ones are bad.

So that's what I'm grateful for today - a life that is more good than bad.