And no matter what you did, the Grump just stayed?
We all have. We’re human.
And sometimes the Grump just likes to come and sit a spell.
Make itself comfortable as it casts its gloomy shadow and sucks us in.
Taking over.
Setting up camp in our hearts.
“I’m here to stay!” the Grump boldly announces.
Whether for a season.
Or a day.
Or even an hour.
It f e e l s like an e t e r n i t y when we’re a Grump.
Ah humbug.
Poor pitiful me.
EVERY-one has it better than ME!
That was MEAN what he said.
She said.
They said.
We said.
Mean.
If only this.
If only that.
It’s his fault.
Her fault.
Everyone else’s fault but our own.
Oh, it’s getting me down.
There’s no end in sight.
For the Grump creates an endless circle of fright.
Round and round it goes.
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“Okay, Sj, I admit it. I’ve been a puddle of gloom and doom before.
A lump of Grump which vowed to show the world just how bad it was so that everyone could see.
It’s so very, very bad.
Can’t you see?”
Yes, I can see.
WE can see.
The gloom.
The doom.
The pool of drool that drips,
drips,
drips.
The lump of Grump which pushes all else aside until we believe there is no hope.
No way out.
Sigh.
Powerless.
We sit and stew.
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What to DO when the Grump arrives?
What do YOU do when you’re a Grump? After it’s landed on your head and oozed down into your heart making a mess of the joy that was there just moments before?
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Five-years ago, a case of the Grumps landed on my Dad. Sitting in a wheelchair unable to walk (just a few weeks after he’d won a 3-hour match in a national tennis tournament), my Dad was thinking, “What the?”
Slumped over in his chair, he brewed.
And stewed.
A Grump.
Feeling sorry for himself.
Seeing no way out.
And then, something c h a n g e d.
I saw it with my own four-eyes.
Somewhere within himself he found the strength to sit-up.
To cast out one kind word.
And then another.
And another.
Soon a fountain of encouragement sprang forth from his personal spring of goodness.
“You can do it!”
“Try again!”
“That’s it!”
Encouraging words flew across the rec hall landing first on a middle-aged woman who’d been paralyzed in a car accident.
Next, they found root in a young man who’d broken his neck in a fall.
One-by-one, I saw the change.
One-by-one, I saw the effects of my father’s words.
“Way to go!”
“That was a solid hit!”
“Good job!”
As this group of spinal cord injured people played volleyball, magic began to happen.
M A G I C.
Sj with her father, November 2008
And it started with my Dad.
The Grump.
Somehow he’d found something to grab onto.
A something that he could stand on.
A something that took him to the other side.
A bridge of sorts manifested itself when he looked within.
When he thought of others.
When he took his eyes off his own sorrow and reached out a helping hand,
in the form of encouraging words.
“You can do it!”
“Try again!”
“That’s it!”
From the depths of despair and self-pity, my Dad found a bridge to the other side.
Dad home on leave visiting the Great Smokey Mountains.
How fitting that a man, who built bridges during World War II to replace those that the Germans blew up, would find a bridge WITHIN himself. A man who served his nation as a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
In his final days, my Dad built a bridge to the other side. A bridge that enabled him to help others even as he helped himself.
A different sort of mettle appeared right when he needed it most.
Patricia Neal visited her eponymous rehabilitation center Fall 2008
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What do YOU do when you’re a Grump?
Stew and brew?
Or sit-up.
Look.
And cast kind words to those around you.
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Sj’s Pep Talk #5: Give Thanks looks at the Grump from another perspective.
I invite you to take a short break and click either on the link above or on the box below.
Afterward, please COMMENT and let me know what YOU do to bid the Grump adieu.
Regardless, I wish you well. I wish you Godspeed in your dance with the Grump.
Though the groove is round, there IS a side track which will open when we call it forth.
When we take the time to look, listen, and act.
• • • • •
This post is dedicated to my niece on whose birthday my Dad rallied in order to be able to come home for the last time.
Happy Birthday Katie!
Mahalo for the use of your Grumpy Cat!