Sympathizing With Others

picture courtesy of Mom

Saturday we spent the day with the King’s family, celebrating Christmas. Once a year we all get together and it is always a blast. This year we had a new baby to hold so that added to the fun!

When we all meet at the King’s Mom’s house, one of the “must do” activities is sliding. Their driveway is on a hill, with a curve towards the bottom. That curve is in the perfect spot, you pick up some pretty good speed by the time you get there. Then you have to hope you can make the corner, if you don’t, you will be hitting the snow bank! I speak from experience! Several times I made the corner, a few times I didn’t! I have the cut chin and bruises to remind myself of the times I didn’t make the corner!

While we were sledding, I got to thinking of other people. One time the Princess and I went down the hill together, I don’t know what happened, but we wiped out. I flew out of the sled and hit the packed down snow and icy driveway. That made me think of Brett Favre (quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings)! He and I are within a few months of each other in age. How does he keep hitting that cold, hard ground that doesn’t give much and then get back up and do it again? I felt the hardness of the unforgiving ground, and I didn’t have any 300 pound players pummeling me at the same time!

The other people I thought about were the people of Haiti. While I was on top of the hill, waiting my turn, I could hear people laughing and screaming on their way down the hill, I could hear people at the bottom of the hill laughing at the ones on their way down. The ones of us at the top of the hill were laughing at the King’s sister, because we all recognized her scream on her way down. As I was standing there with my husband, children, nieces, nephews, great-nephews, brother-in-law, sister-in-law and father-in-law, I thought about how blessed we all were. We could all see and hear each other. We all knew the rest of the family was safe and enjoying themselves. I can’t imagine what the people of Haiti are going through. What is it like to be standing on one side of town and not know how your children, spouse, parents or extended family are doing on the other side of town, not even knowing if they are alive or dead. You might not even be able to walk to the other side of town because of injuries you sustained. Or, maybe you are fine, but because of all the rubble in the streets, you cannot get through. That would be a horrible thing to experience. Thinking of those people made my sledding with the whole family more fun and special than it usually is.