Keeping Life in Perspective

I woke up at 6:30 this morning to my husband saying, "Sounds like Gatlin is throwing up."  My first thought, and I'll be honest here, was "oh, great, just what I want to deal with this morning,"  Yeah, I'm not a very sympathetic mom.
Luckily Gatlin had made it to the bathroom in time and when I saw what was in the sink and the bowl in his hands, as he sat on the toilet, boy was I glad he made it. It's nice when you kids are old enough to puke on their own.  Then reality set in. Today was the first day of a week of state assessment testing that my son has to pass in order to graduate. Great, not only do I have a sick kid but now he is going to have to make up a test in August, during the summer, when there is no school. His Scouting high adventure is planned for August. Sure hope for his sake it's not during the same week.
Before I could get into clean up mode it occurred to me that Catherine hadn't come in to use the bathroom we were now occupying. Concerned I went into her room to find her still in bed. She was supposed to be at work in half an hour. She woke up a little upset that once again the alarm on her phone hadn't gone off. She had set it for 5am so she could wake up to register for her next semester's classes. Now she had to register, and be to work in less than half an hour.
Sick kid, late kid, what else was going to happen?  As Catherine drove out of the driveway there was a crunch sound and I knew I shouldn't have wondered. I ran out to see what had happened but she was driving off so I figured she must have run over some branches or something in the flower bed. Moving on with my morning.
Gatlin back in bed, bathroom sanitized, Grant awake and getting dressed, day care child patiently waiting for his breakfast that I am now making. Crickets chirping loudly from my cell phone..."I hit dad's car as I backed out of the driveway."

Great!

And why did I receive said text? Why didn't she just text her dad? Why are mothers the go between for their children and their father? Or maybe that is just the way it is in my house. Actually, it's not that way with all of my kids, just some and just when it 's bad news like, "I hit dad's car as I backed out of the driveway."

I got on Facebook, posted my oh so fun and not even 7am morning, feeling like the day couldn't get any worse. Friends posted with their concern and I felt better.

Then I went to check my email and opened up my Yahoo to the barrage of articles about the crisis in Japan and then it hit me.  There were people in the world right now that would give anything to have had my morning. A child alive enough to be sick, a car to crunch while rushing off to a job. A test to reschedule in a few months because they knew there would be a school to take that test at in a few months.

It stopped me in my tracks. My pathetic morning was nothing but a hiccup. As it ended up Gatlin never got sick the rest of the day, there was no real serious harm done to either one of our cars and the test, well, that might still be an issue come August but then again it will only be a hiccup.

My heart and my prayers go out to all of those who have lost loved ones, homes, jobs, cars, towns, and now live with the fear of radiation exposure. Those are the real tragedies that are going on right now. I have no idea what living through a real tragedy is. I have never experienced it.

I need to remember that and keep life in perspective.