It's Always Something

Sisyphus truly symbolized life. Pushing the huge rock to the near top of the pit, only to have it roll back to the bottom.

A dear friend just hit his stride. His kids are doing well (although one seems destined to be on a non traditional road), his wife is nagging him a little less, and his career is soaring. And then, he gets the news that his mother, still very young, apparently has a serious case of cancer. She's having major surgery today.

My mother likes to quote the wisdom of HER mother, my grandmother Anna. I was never close to the old lady, who always seemed ancient to me, and spoke in such a heavy Yiddish accent on top of a mumbling way of speaking, that I never understood more of about 30% of what she said.

But, according to my mother, Grandma said "Sunny --if you want true peace, there's only one place you'll get it --in the grave. There it's quiet and no one bothers you."

In the metaphor department, I've always liked my former boss Ed's approach. He'd always allude to the classic cartoon of a man hanging on a rope over a pit of starving and snapping alligators. When I'd complain about too much to deal with , he'd say "Dave --the only reasonable course of action is to deal with the biggest alligator, followed by increasingly smaller ones. Eventually, you've put them all to rest, or fallen into the pit and died. Either way, your troubles are over."

And so it is. I'm visiting my ancient mother today, a woman who has had to deal with precious few alligators in her life, at least by herself. My father dealt with them for her, followed by some 21 year old forced to become a man far earlier than he wanted to...

Then, I'm off to meet my friend at the hospital, while he waits for the surgery to end. Hopefully it will be positive news. and we'll go out for a few drinks and laughs.

Regardless, the rock's going to roll right back down the hill...