Gratitude

Sometimes, I get so very caught up in my own world.  I feel like I am swallowed by own self pity.  I think it might be part of my life long belief in fairness.  I, since I was a kid, always focused on what is "fair."  I would wallow and obsess about "that's not fair!"  I found myself falling to these weakness thru my adult life.  Sometimes, I would go tilting after windmills over the trivial causes thinking that if I could make something fair life would be better for me and for those around me.  Sometimes this would make me nuts and other times, it could give me a feeling of peace.
  This past few years, I keep asking..."why me?  oh, poor me.."  I thought it was not fair.  What had I done to deserve this illness.  Was I really ill?  What had happened to me and why?  I guess this petty thought  kept running around in my head and heart.  It did not give comfort or give relief.  I still find myself in my own trap. 
  Well, in the past month, I have learned that as sick as I feel, compared to my fellow workers in the National Guard, I am much better off.  I have people fighting for me right now that are sicker and facing a more dreaded future than I do.  I just today was reading about my friend, co-worker, and fellow guardsman, Jim.  His wife keeps a blog about his ordeal with cancer.  He has been sick on and off with Cancer since 05.  Now he is literally fighting for his life in the ICU.  He wife and children keep giving him love and encouraging his fight all the time.  He is really going thru hell... but you know what he said to me last time I saw him last year?  He said he felt lucky that he was not feeling like I was all the time. 
  Another new friend and fellow Guardsman, also is fighting her illness.  She is struggling with her symptoms and still doing her best with two young children and normal busy life of a wife and home keeper.   But with all of this, she finds it in her heart to fight for not just her health but over a dozen other people that we believe are ill from something at work.  She is relentless and keeps pushing so hard to get the doors to open to anyone to listen to us.  She has only given and keeps fighting for us all.
  I guess seeing these people that are in a much more difficult situation and continuing the fight makes me feel grateful.  I know I am luckier than many people.  I have children that love me and help me all  the time.  I have parents and siblings that offer encouragement all the time, too.  I have leaders that try to give me purpose.  I have so many people trying to help me.  I look at where I am and what I have, I can not help but feel grateful.  I am grateful for what I have and that includes the courage I see in my friends.