Living Life has Taught Me by Betty King

  Living isn’t all about me, and my life; I learned that lesson, though it took me awhile.

Raising four children and living with MS has taught me much over the years. Raising any amount of children isn’t easy, especially when you start out at sixteen.

Madly in love and eager to meet the world head-on my husband and I married; I was barely sixteen, he nineteen, in 1957.

     I learned quickly:

     1. Love doesn’t feed you; it doesn’t put food on the table.

     2.  Love doesn’t pay bills; you need money for that.

     3. There is more to love than feelings; love is a job to be worked at and maintained. Feelings are surface – love, true love, is seeded deeper. 

     In 1958 our first son was born; I was still sixteen and began to see a multitude of significant revelations:

     1. Books don’t raise kids – people do!

     2. Raising children is work, not just a pleasure.

     3. Babies grow up.

     4. They need more than nourishment for their stomachs – their hearts and souls need to be fed.

     Infants don’t read manuals on how they should act, when they should cry or when their diapers need to be changed. They cry when their stomachs are empty. They do not heed to what books say about every so many hours needing to be fed. They cry when they are hungry, when they are wet or when they need to feel arms of the heart that loves them. I saw them grow up, out and away, as the years unfolded. They became adults with lives of their own. Children are only on loan and you best feed them with more than food for them to reap dividends.

      My next lesson – life teaches you! No matter what you read and try to absorb experience is the best teacher. So I began to travel the road of perception. I found out right away, life is full of:

1.      Bumpy roads

2.      Detours

3.      Landslides

4.      Barricades

     I figured out desire isn’t all there is to life – sometimes it’s reality. I began not only to feel the irregular terrain of life but see it as well. Some day’s life is fun and exciting, others, it is full of boredom and the mundane. Some day’s there was not enough money to pay bills, let alone money for extras. I learned first things first. I learned that there are mountains and valleys along the way, but that it takes two mountains to make one valley; there is always sunshine after the rain.

     Then Reality hit and I found out:

1.      Health problems can strike unexpectedly.

2.      You can live despite an incurable disease.

3.      Everyone has a handicap of one kind or another.

4.      True Love, sticks around when better or worse, plays out in a marriage.

     After being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, I found many of my abilities were taken from me and I learned to use aides to enable me to continue on with my life. Canes, wheelchairs and three-wheel motorized scooters, bedside potties, lifts and a vast array of other devices became a way of life for me. I learned life was still worth living, only differently. I also discovered many others were so much worse off than I. I learned to appreciate what I have, and live the best that I can, a life that is full as possible. I see that adversity is only a ladder enabling me to climb out of misery and become more than I ever thought I could be. I also saw adversity tie knots in our marriage, making it stronger, and I knew I had truly married my friend, not just my lover.

     I realized a few other things as well:

     1.  There is someone bigger than you and I.

     2   Knowledge is not all that is needed – wisdom is even more important.

     3.  I am not strong enough to endure on my own strength alone.

     4.  To find happiness – learn to be content – you’re about as happy as you make up your mind to be.

     5.  Peace and Joy are priceless; and they lie deep within.

     6.  Humor can make the ravines of life seem less troublesome.

     I have learned I need others, help, words, strength and wisdom; I am not an island unto myself. It is not - what does life have for me? I realize it is what I can give back in this life that is important. I see we are all on pathways of varying terrains and we all need each other and we all need someone bigger than us. Peace, joy and happiness are such easy gifts to accept, not THINGS to go searching for. Life is easier if I laugh at myself and join others in seeing the comedy in life.

     I am merely a speck in the universe, I may have been made, unique and special, but so, too, were you. This road that I am traveling is not for me alone; we are all traveling together and it would be easier if we held each other’s hand. It would also be easier if we all realized, someone bigger than you and me, has the map laid out before us and He knows the way.

     Yes, Life is not all about me I have learned; and thank, goodness, life is continuing to teach me.

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Betty King is the author of, It takes Two Mountains to Make a Valley, and it’s soon to be released sequel, But – It Was in the Valleys I Grew. She has a story in, Chicken Soup for the Mother and Daughter Soul and Alice Grays, Stories from a Soldiers Heart. She writes a weekly newspaper column for the Register news and is an Internet writer with honors of:

Heart Warmer Gem, on www.heartwarmers.com, Writer of the Month, on 2theheart.com and Starfish Treasure on www.ripplemaker.com . She has lived with MS for over 37 years.
Betty's website www.betty.newsmoose.com email [email protected]

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