The Christmas Goose

Does simply a bad word from someone wreck your day? Is your chin always down, do your feet drag? If someone says something you don't agree with do you decide to hate them forever? Do you spend too much time thinking about how the world is a terrible place and everything is unfair? Do you focus on all the horrors and the sorrow?

Look at ole Mills. She does none of these things. She had one leg pinned, she now has a mysterious spinal injury and drags the other leg, she is older and doesn't feel too great most of the time. I bet she never spent a day thinking about bad stuff. Nah, no way. Animals are smart enough to know what a waste that truly is. Animals don't bother with politics and philosophy, they simply are. (neither do little children by the way) I suggest they are the ones that have it all figured out.

An old and ex-friend found out a few months ago that he had cancer. He now tells everyone he is going to die. The doctors caught it early, he is cancer free and recovering nicely but he is still convinced death is eminent. I pity him this holiday season and beyond because for him there will never be anything wonderful or good about life, despite the fact that he has a nice and paid for home, someone who loves him, 2 furry companions and money in the bank. He refuses to give at Christmas because "nobody ever gave me anything"......PPFFFFFT.

Another friend shared with me recently that she was abused as a child. She seldom got a present for Christmas ( and I am sorry to say she may not have ever experienced the excitement of Santa) and was very very poor. Yet everything single thing about her life and attitude is filled with goodness. She shares everything she has and finds the beauty in life, the satisfaction from a little comfort and the knowing that you are lucky if just one person loves you. Some spend years pondering on how their life went wrong and some just grab the ball and run with it. I consider myself very lucky to have people like her to balance out the sorrow eaters and the folks that are always falling on the sword.

I am taking the long way around to tell you about my Christmas gift. I always say I don't need anything and I don't, nothing material anyway. Having a few extra coins I can share is my Christmas pleasure. I am no saint or anything special. I share because I have always had more than I needed, even when times are tough, I still have enough. Seems to me people have been more generous this year. I love the stories of the layaway angels (if you haven't heard about this, please google it)

I cannot stand and weep at every animal that gets killed in the road but I can pull the car over to offer some assistance when needed. Some of you who are on facebook know about the Canada Goose lady that got hit by a car. Her beak was broken, her face was filled with blood and part of her tongue cut off. I couldn't just leave her there to die, I am no hero but felt duty bound to offer her a chance or at least a better death than freezing and dying in pain on the side of the highway. I pulled over and gently gathered her up and raced her out to the wildlife rehab. Massive head trauma. The next 10 to 12 days are critical.

Got word a few days ago that Goose Lady will live. She will spend the winter at the wildlife rehab and be released back into the wild when she is all better. Her survival is my Christmas gift this year. My something wonderful. The picture and article I have about her is in adobe so I could not figure out how to post it but if you want to read it, drop me an email and I will forward it to you. I feel so very pleased and happy that she will make it. It wasn't just her second chance but another chance for me. I accidently ran over and killed a turtle this summer. Miss Goose added the weight to balance that out, to keep the carousel going around. Thank you Goose girly.

I have tons of favorite books, quotes, movies etc. My very favorite story will always be A Christmas Carol. Its all about second chances. Not people giving you second chances or you giving them second chances but you recognizing for yourself when a second chance comes along and not turning your nose up at it. Your chance to balance the weight and keep the carousel going around.

I wish you all a very happy holiday season and leave you with this:

There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round - apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that - as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!

"It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour."- Charles Dickens

A Christmas Carol