"Do you ever have a bad day?"

A fellow at church asked Cliff yesterday, "Don't you guys ever have a bad day?"

This, after asking him something like, "How are you doing?" or some such ordinary inquiry that one makes when greeting another person.

There are many illnesses going around the community lately, some sort of flu, I believe.  There are also a lot of serious health issues being mentioned by members of the congregation, which is to be expected when quite a few of us aren't spring chickens.  A lot of folks out there are having some bad days, no doubt about it.  

But do Cliff or I ever have bad days?  Well friends, we have had them, but they are few and far between.  For instance, on the occasions when Cliff has been seriously ill.  He isn't sick often, but when he is, he seems to take things to the extreme.  We were newlyweds when he came down with a serious case of hepatitis A; the doctor wanted him hospitalized, but he refused because we didn't have insurance.  He was off work for weeks.  In 2006 he had a four-way heart bypass.  We figured that was about as serious an issue as anyone could have until the gall bladder fiasco a couple of years back.  

Those were bad days for us, both of us, because when somebody you love is sick, you can't be very happy.

For myself, I've had two possibly-serious brushes with death in my life, but one of those was in utero, so I have no recollection.  I wasn't expected to survive full term, thanks to the fact that my mother had what was then referred to as uremic poisoning.  Then there was some mysterious illness when I was seven that kept me in the hospital for over a week that somehow fixed itself, with no help from the doctors.  Maybe that was a close call, maybe not.  Nobody knows.  Since then, I've had not a single serious illness.  (Knock wood.)  

You see, I associate "bad days" with illness.  Yesterday morning my regular readers found me pondering whether I might have the beginning stages of Alzheimer's, and I will admit my spirits have been somewhat low for a couple of days, but that did not constitute what I consider to be bad days.  Yes, I ate too many of the cookies I made Friday, before I got them out of the house, but I have forgiven myself for that already.  

As a side note for those of you who commented on the entry yesterday, if I continue to think I'm slipping, I will, at my next doctor visit, talk about it with her.  By then, though, I'll probably decide I'm just fine.  

The death of a loved one makes for some bad days.  That hasn't happened to me lately.  A daughter having cancer was depressing and gave her many, many bad days, but I personally continued to sail along... worried, but still mostly having good days.    

We've always been on the low end of the pay scale, but finances have never much entered into what kind of days we were having.  Even when Cliff was out of work for an extended period, although he would get downhearted occasionally, I don't recall it as a terrible time.  We were probably closer then than at any other time in our marriage.

So, when I'm at church and someone asks how I'm doing and I say "fine" or "great", I mean it.  I guess I could tell people about my knees hurting all the time, but achy knees don't ruin a day for me.  I notice them, then I say to myself, "No wonder they hurt!  Think of all the places they've taken me, the walks I've had, the things I've done!  These knees have a right to complain a little."  Knee pain can't stop me from sitting in my easy chair and reading a good book.

Pain can ruin a day for anyone, but I haven't gotten to that point yet.  When it happens, I most likely won't be at church.  So you can expect me to be just fine when you see me there.

Until then, I'm doing great; thank you very much for asking.