A Gold Star Day

I'm glad 2018 is over. It was one of the worst years of my life, it wasn't the worst, but it was in the top five list of worst years. My family went through a lot of unexpected illness and disappointments. My son said there were days when he felt like he was a nail and everyone else in the world was holding a hammer.

I've been happy to see a new year arrive and I hope it is a happier, healthier, and better year than 2018 was.

I guess it is just a date on a calendar, but somehow a new year feels different. It feels like we get another chance to do things right, another chance to be happy, another chance to lose weight, get out of debt, fall in love and have a fresh start.

The Kickapoo tribe would celebrate the New Year when they heard the first thunder after the ground had thawed and you could stick your finger into the earth up to your first knuckle. They would eat and dance for days, and then they would burn their wickiups to the ground and build new ones. Every year each family would have a clean, fresh, new home.

Most people, world wide, welcome the New Year with open arms and high hopes that it will bring good things into their lives.

We start diets, make resolutions, start saving money or join a gym, but most of our good intentions fade away in a month or two. Our daily lives, jobs and other people get in our way.

When my children were small, they couldn't wait for Christmas to come. Every day they would cross off another day on the calendar, but when you are young and Christmas is coming, time goes very slowly. My four-year-old daughter solved the problem by taking scissors and cutting two weeks out of the calendar. She thought cutting days off the calendar would make them disappear and Christmas would arrive sooner. We can't do that with a new year, either.

I have a neighbor named Mary. She is 89-years-old and she uses a walker. Every day she slowly walks to the mailbox and unlocks the box and looks inside. Then she closes the door on the mailbox, locks it and slowly walks back to her apartment. I have never seen her take an envelope out of her mailbox-as far as I know, she doesn't even get junk mail. But every day, she walks to the mailbox, expecting or hoping for a letter. It makes me feel bad that she never gets any mail.

Mary invited me to join her for a cup of coffee one morning. While I was sitting at her kitchen table I saw a calendar taped to the door of her refrigerator. Every day had a shiny gold star stuck on it. It was the 15th day of the month and there were 15 gold stars.

"Can I ask about the gold stars?" I said.

"When I was a little girl in school, and I spelled all the words right on my spelling test, the teacher would give me a gold star. It was a wonderful reward. Five years ago the doctor told me I had cancer; I nearly died. My chances of living to see my 85th birthday were very slim. Next month I'll be 90 years old. I'll have lived five years longer than the doctor said I would.

Every morning that I wake up alive and can drink my coffee and have breakfast and see the sunshine is a gold star day. It makes me feel good. I reward myself for waking up to another day. I was determined to make it to my 90th birthday but I'm feeling good so now I'm determined to make it to my 95th birthday or maybe even my 100th birthday," Mary said.

"Congratulations, that's wonderful," I said.

"I have lots of gold stars," Mary pulled open a kitchen drawer, and I saw a dozen little boxes of shiny gold stars. "Every day I am still alive, is a gold star day."

We should all feel that way. No matter how hard life can be, no matter what problems we have to face, every day we wake up and breathe and move and see the sun and drink our coffee is a gold star day.

I hope your day is a gold star day!

Crying Wind is the author of Crying Wind, My Searching Heart,

When the Stars Danced,

Thunder in Our Hearts, Lightning in Our Veins, and Stars in the Desert.