Patience

My Dad taught me to play patience. His parents taught me too. It is a great pass-time for those days when I need a time-passer. It has also taught me a great thing. And I am sure you can guess what that might be!
I was playing yesterday evening. Sitting in bed with my tray and patience cards. I remembered a game I had not played for a while and decided to give it a go. It was an easier one to complete than one I had been playing the last few weeks- or so I thought. Over about 45 minutes I laid the cards out, dealt and moved them around. Each of 5 or 6 times, the game would not complete. What was going wrong? This is not unusual, a few weeks ago I laid out a similar game over and over again for an hour, without success. It wasn't until I attempted the same game a few days later that it completed three times in a row!
As I packed the cards away yesterday I noticed three cards sat next to me on the bed! They had obviously escaped the set I had been dealing with and may have been the reason this game was refusing to complete. After an instant sinking feeling, I laughed out loud and knew it had to be something I told my Dad next time I saw him- he would be laughing out loud too-LOL.
The reason I mention this phenomenon is that the card games I have been playing over the years have taught me a very good lesson. When I play alone or with others I smile all the way through. Nothing is determined in life. You are dealt your cards and you smile whether the game works out your way or not. By enjoying the process I have a much better desire to accept my situation. Knowing that it may take a few attempts to reach certain goals, gives me a strength and an acceptance if there is a necessity to deal out those cards again a few times along the way. This has happened numerous times in my illness and we have discovered sometimes that some of those cards are missing. In those times I have picked up these patience cards and started again. I smile when I am winning- who wouldn't?- and after an initial sinking feeling, I smile when I am not. Be that a smile through a full hibernation or just sitting on a choppy wave.