Lucky
Because I�m self absorbed at times I forget what type of world we�re living in. I even forget what I do and how that is reflected on the real world. Yesterday I was in my doctor�s office. The nurse came and took all the vitals. Usually we joke around, I ask her about her kids etc. I was so sick yesterday that I was just quiet. She said, you don�t feel good do you and I said no. When the doctor came in he came in wearing a mask. I can tell you that he�s never done that before. He had on a mask and gloves. He never wears gloves with me unless he�s doing the prostate thing. He asked me if I had flown to Asia or anywhere where there are a lot of Asians. I told him that there is a large Asian community in Caracas but that I didn�t come into contact with them. He took my temperature and it was below normal and I didn�t have any pains in my chest so he took everything off and said that I wasn�t a candidate for SARS. The joke at work on my last trip was that me and another flight attendant who was also sick was coughing so much that a passenger asked if we had SARS. I told him yes we do but that my airline was so concerned about an on time departure that they made me and the other girl work the flight. I thought it was funny but obviously she didn�t. I told her that obviously if I/we had SARS we wouldn�t be here at work. She was relieved and then later apologized for asking a dumb question. The thing is that I�m around so many people who ask dumb questions that I forget that a whole other world is out there. I�m coughing up a storm and it never occurred to me that people could actually think that I may have come in contact with SARS. On Thursday I flew 3 legs which were pretty full each leg. The plane that I was on held 158 people so roughly in the 8 hour period that I worked, I came in contact with 474 people not counting the ground crew people. That�s a lot of people that I could have contaminated or who could have contaminated me. But luckily I just have an ear and sinus infection. Who would have thought that one day we would call ourselves lucky for only having an ear infection?
My mother told me a sad story today. It made me think about how lucky I was to grow up in the family that I did. My mom is a teacher. She teaches Kindergarten. My mother went back to school to be a teacher the same time I went to college. She always wanted to teach but she felt that it was important to stay at home with me when I was young. Then when I got older she went back to work until she knew that I was partially on my own. Anyway, ever since she�s been teaching she�s always had her class do some sort of Mother�s Day Tea thing. It�s always the Friday before Mother�s Day and it�s always a huge crowd. She said that in her 14 years of teaching she�s never seen a mother not show up. It the mother couldn�t be there then a Grandmother or Aunt would come to the tea. She told me yesterday that Christopher�s mother didn�t show up. Not only did she not show up but no one showed up. She said that he was left there by himself. The mother showed up at the end of the day and my mother said that she couldn�t even look at her. I�m always trying to take the side of the underdog so I asked my Mom if maybe the mother had to work and couldn�t get it off or maybe she just forget. My Mom said that there were Mother�s there who ran there during their lunch hour. There were mothers there in the past who would call in sick for the whole day just to spend time with the child. I just started thinking about why people have children. I think that some people think that having children is some kind of right of passage. It�s never about the child and it�s never about sacrifice. My parent sacrificed so much for me when I was young. We only had one car so my mother could stay home with me. We didn�t go to Disneyworld or places like that in the summer. That wasn�t my world but I don�t feel like I missed out on anything. My father was in the military and was gone a lot. But there was always someone there at every school event at every teacher�s conference at every band recital. I knew that one if not both of my parents would be there. Because that was there responsibility as parents.
Our ex-friends are people who I think love their children but they can�t financially take care of them. I was shocked when I was told that they borrowed from their little boy�s college fund so that they could go to Disneyworld. I don�t have kids so maybe I don�t have room to talk but I think that parents now days are more concerned about their lives, their car and their vacations instead of worrying about what�s best for the child.
Thanks Mom and Dad for what you did for me.
My Weather
