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Last September, my street and basement flooded, along with most of the Northeastern United States. The flood happened on the same day that my father was admitted to the hospital with a serious infection. I remember curling up on the bed in defeat, feeling like a victim. And then I remembered Katrina. Suddenly I felt more like a spoiled child. I got out of bed, put on some old jeans and shoes and headed down to the basement where my husband was busy with a shop vac and buckets. By the end of the day the basement was wet but the standing water was gone. The following week my father was sitting in his living room watching his favorite TV shows and life was pretty much back to normal.

Monday, I listened to someone on the phone telling me how terrible life is, and how the puddles of water Sandy left in their basement were just rancid icing on a terrible cake.

“Do you have your TV on? Because you still have power….. so is the TV on?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s on. You can’t even watch anything except video of the hurricane.”

“So you’re telling me that you can sit there and complain about how terrible life is for you, with that playing in the background? Your power hasn’t gone out, you just ate lunch, you have heat in your home, all of your big trees are standing and you only have a small amount of water in part of your basement.”

“Well there’s always SOMEONE who has it worse”, she huffed.

Exactly.