Since 2003, six members of my family have lost their jobs including me. I knew my job was going to be outsourced, but because I was writing my book, I stayed. On the last day of my job, when I returned home feeling blue, there was a phone call that the publisher had accepted my manuscript. See why I believe in angels?
I believe God sent me in another direction. Some who have lost their job didn’t see it coming. Losing a job turns your life upside down. Conscientious and hard-working, a good employee can find it hard to find joy when stress, worry and tears hit when they are “let go.” Happiness seems hard to grasp. Living with kidney disease combines some of the same desperate feelings as you go about life. One of the things I admire most about my two sisters and my mom, my aunts and uncles, who all live or lived with kidney disease, is and was their amazing cheerfulness and zest for life.
My mother told me she made up her mind to be happy. At her funeral so many people told me was how much fun she was! My sisters are the same. Joyful despite their burdens!
Nathaniel Hawthorne: Happiness is as a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.