What a Difference One Point Can Make
From Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Power of Gratitude
By Amy Corron Power

Gratitude is an art of painting an adversity into a lovely picture.
~Kak Sri

I am visiting my mother in the hospital while she recovers from pneumonia and other complications from triple bypass surgery. She complains about the food to my brother, my father, my boyfriend, and me. My boyfriend and I have just returned to Houston from a Christmas visit to his parents’ home in Ohio, where I plan to go to law school in the fall.

If she is complaining, I reason, it means she is getting better. My brother motions for me to step outside and join him in the hall. He leads me to a stairwell, far beyond the hearing of my mom and dad. I prepare for the worst.

“You cannot go to law school,” he says. “Dad has cancer.”

My father, who never gets sick, who never missed a day of work in thirty years as a public school principal due to illness, has cancer.

“You can’t tell Mom,” he says. (Keep reading)