Grateful

I was sitting at Panera Bread sipping my coffee, reading the paper, and responding to emails on my laptop. Worrying about daylight savings and my kids’ sleep schedules…whoever came up with the idea of daylight savings did not have little kids. Stressed out about the fact that Claire’s reflux had not gotten any better…if anything it had gotten worse. Mad that I had gotten up at 5am that morning and couldn’t go back to sleep…Ugh, I really needed that extra hour of sleep.

This was all going through my head when I saw a middle-aged man roll out of Panera in his wheel chair with a cup of coffee in his hand. He rolled up to his truck, opened the driver door, and then hoisted himself up into the truck with his arms. He then pressed a button in his truck and an “arm” rotated from the back of his truck and dangled a pulley over the wheel chair. He hooked up the wheel chair to the pulley, pressed another button and the wheel chair slowly raised off the ground and rotated into the back of his pickup. This whole process took probably 10 minutes. 10 minutes! Ten minutes for him just to get into his car and drive away. All for a cup of coffee. And what was even more surprising…he did it all with a smile on his face. I have no idea what this guy’s story is but he seemed to love life. Maybe loving that he can actually drive like a normal person. Maybe loving that he still has use of his upper body. Or maybe just loving that he was about to indulge in a cup of his favorite coffee.

Whatever his story, he certainly made me stop and think about what now seemed like such little worries that were running through my head that morning.