Strength and Responsibility

"A man may fall many times but he won't be a failure until he says someone pushed him."
--Elmer G. Letterman

It is easy to blame someone for what you life has become. Sure, I can play the victim too but after everything that we have been through, I have found that it is not what happens to us in life but how we react to what happens.

As the snow falls here in Milwaukee, I look out my windows and witness the bare and dead looking trees that were only full of color just a week ago. It is then that I realize how much I dislike the winter and the bitter cold that drills into my bones. No, this is not where I had pictured myself to be at this stage of my life. Having met Greg, I soon came to realize that my leaving New York would take me no other place than Wisconsin - for that was where his doctors and family were. For a few years after I had moved here, I blamed his disease for making me move here - 900 miles away from my family and friends. Alone and without those people I had loved all my life. I would continue to bring up my pain at living here and then Greg became very ill and my perspective changed.

Yes, I had moved out here so that the doctor's that knew him best would not be far away. When he became sick, it was then I realized that I was not a victim in this but I was incredibly smart for making the move. His doctor, who had treated him since he was 16 years old, was the one that saved his life back in 2002 - the key doctor that I had resolved not to make him leave.

So, for years, I played the victim of my circumstances and led a half-lived life. Every once in a while my mind travels back to that victim mentality - especially when it is cold and the trees are bare. Then I picture the smile I adore - that of my husband's - and realize that life is what you make of it. Sure, things may look bad now or people/circumstances may put you in situations you may not want to be in - but if you realize that it is just a step on the path of life and that it will make you stronger for what lay down this path - then you realize that you are not a victim but a strong human being - if, and only if, you choose to use those circumstances to your advantage or meet them with a smile rather than tears.