Grateful

My story is not unusual in nature. Tragedy have struck our family when I was 12. My mother's hypertension attacked which led her to have a CV hemorrage. The entire family (my mom siblings are nine in all) are shocked and deep grief have overtaken them. You could feel "negative" emotions on everybody. Everywhere I go, I feel grief and pity for us. People around us don't know what to do. It has been more than fifteen years since a death in the family occured.

The following months were very hard. And each one of us ( my dad, me and my sister) have a different reaction to the incident. My dad turned to alcohol, I turn to food and my sister turned to television. And almost every night, we cry ourselves to sleep.

Then about four months after, I got tired of mourning. Then I decided to think and reflect on what happened. Then I realized that incident have made me grown up all of the sudden. I realized that nothing would make my mom come back. I know its painful but we have to move on, even little by little.

Then I became aware of people that surrounds me. Then I was intrigued by a classmate of mine then who've got more problems than me (I'll not elaborate the problems as its her private life, hope you understand). But whenever I look at her, she is always smiling and full of energy. She deals with her problems very well.

I was intrigued. I asked her one day (I hope I did not offend her),

"What keeps you smiling? I know you and I both have problems, how come you
could still smile inspite all of those problems?"

And like always, she said (not in exact words but the meaning is the same)

"Its because life is short. I don't want to waste my time spending my days
sad and miserable. And those problems won't go away anyway I deal with it. So I
choose to deal with my problems smiling rather than a sad or angry face. And
besides, God is always with me wherever and whatever I do. And that alone is one
thing to be thankful for. He gave me this test because He loves me and He knows
I could pass this with flying colours."

I was silent. And she made me realize the truth about what she said. Looking on the bright side of things are easy if we only knew how.

And then so, I realized that, I couldn't spend my short life being miserable. Being miserable would only worsen your feeling and won't make your problems go away.

Being grateful is one of the best ways to brighten your day. Thinking of small things to be thankful for makes one smile even in difficult times.

I learned, if the feelings on misery, emptiness, loneliness, etc. (i.e. negative feelings) won't go away, do things that you love even when don't feel like it. Keep yourself busy. It will ease the pain even by little.

I also learned that a smiling face beautifies anybody and laughing radiates the face even more so.

And time heals pain and acknowledging the pain hastes the recovery of one's wound.

I got my life back again, little by little. Its not a walk in the clouds but I am still grateful I know I am growing as person even little by little.

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This post is part of the The Power of Positive Thinking Group Writing Project organized by Kirsten Harrell of the Positive Thinking Blog. Please do note that entries submitted by July 15th will be compiled into an ebook.

I was tagged by Toni. As the rules command, I am tagging 5 people.

I am tagging the first five readers from MyBlogLog community who haven't participated in this meme before ( we will know don't we :) ) Thanks