Things we take for granted

Within the past week, as I made my usual brisk trek from train car to the waiting shuttle van, I saw a group of people gathered around a man who had obviously fallen while stepping out of the train.  I recognized the man because I pass him nearly every day.  He is almost certainly younger than I am, walks with a slow limp favoring one leg, assisted by a stylish wooden cane.  He is also taller and heavier than I, so I am sure the fall was painful.  Yet, in his determined struggle to regain his footing, I recognized the same instinct I would have had -- the desire to quickly show my self-reliance, to distance myself from the embarrassment.  And by the time I had made the few more steps to draw even with the group, he had risen grimly to his feet.  I don't know what affliction has left him in need of his cane, but I was reminded again of the simple blessing of being able to get up any morning of the week I desire to jog several miles.

The other source of gratitude came from a more earthy circumstance, the failure of a toilet to flush.  Now, this is not unheard of in our house full of girls.  We have implemented a night-time policy to limit flushing because in the close quarters of our smallish home, a flushing toilet in the quiet of the night reminds one of Niagara Falls.  So, we generally abide by this rule: If it is yellow, let it mellow.  If it is brown, flush it down.  Occasionally, there is just a bit too much mellowness and accompanying paper product to make it down without an assist.  For sixteen years in this house, the faithful, simple plunger had always been enough.  Until Sunday.  After uncounted failed attempts at plunging, and later equally fruitless efforts using a borrowed snake, the plumber was called in.  Some combination of recent trauma and decades of calcification has rendered the toilet unusable and it will need to be replaced.  How quickly our home would be uninhabitable if not for simple sanitation.  And I remembered my Mom grew up with an outhouse…

To walk without a limp and flush without worrying are reasons to be grateful.