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* See that man/woman over there with one eye and no arms. Now don't you feel better/more fortunate?. (Um...sorry but NO I don't.)

Where do they get these???

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I have a real life story about this one -- or rather something similar to it.

I had a dear friend (now deceased) named Rex. Rex had some sort of wasting disease with a complicated name I never could remember. Rex lived on a wheelbed. Not in a wheelchair but on a wheelbed. He had only the use of his head and neck. The rest of his body was wasting away and his limbs and torso had long since become useless to him.

His devoted mother had to feed him, bathe him, toilet and/or change him just like a baby.

Rex wasn't stupid, slow or retarded though. He did speak a little slowly, probably because his jaws didn't work well. But there was nothing wrong with that keen mind, and let me tell you something else -- there was nothing missing from that full heart, either. He was one of those unsung heroes in life who endured his unenviable lot with a rare grace, patience, dignity, and compassion for others that can honestly be described as saintly.

I would visit Rex sometimes on shabbat afternoons and just spend the afternoon talking with him about anything and everything. At that time in my life we were very poor, and I was raising 3 small children (one of them born with a congenital condition that gave her seizures and profound developmental delays) and dealing with the same things I'd dealt with all my life (and a few that thankfully are no longer issues for me now) -- but the one Rex was most familiar with seeing me go through, and hearing me talk about, was the bone-crushing depression. (He was the first person to ever speak to me about depression in objective and educated terms, as well).

One day while visiting Rex I got to venting a little of my frustration with things in my life. I had been telling him how tired I was of everyone always dumping everything on me to fix and take care of, never getting any help, never getting any rest or time for myself, then being treated like the selfish bad guy if I dared vocalize any of it. That I was always having to tend to everything and be the one to either take care of it or delegate and oversee it, and how sick of it all I was.

Now, you have to understand Rex and I had the sort of friendship where we could be authentic with each other as well as kid with each other. I told him, "you have it easy -- you get to just kick back there and laze around all day and have everyone around you wait on you -- and they have to! They don't get a choice! I wish I could have that!" -- naturally of course I didn't wish his condition on EITHER of us, but I was making a point. And I told him, joking around, "Hey, I'll trade afflictions with ya ..."

And he got dead serious, looked me straight in the eye, and without a hint of joking, said frankly, "No thanks (Mal). I wouldn't want yours for anything in the world."

Really gives you an interesting perspective on who's the "less fortunate," eh? And from one of those "less fortunate," no less.

True story.
~mal