Life Happens

And it’s a mix of bitter and sweet

Life is exciting.

That's what I said last week after chatting with three different people who are all going through various stages of untreatable illness. At first, I felt helpless and overwhelmed. What can I do? And then I realized how I respond matters less than how they themselves face their future. As I live out my own days, I never know what will come my way. That's what makes life so exciting.

So I have been thinking a lot about that saying: "Why do bad things happen to good people?" On my lunch break, I talked about it with my partner, Jim.

I told him that one of the happiest people I had ever met was a man with no legs in Jacmel, Haiti who was getting around by pushing himself on a wooden board with wheels and who seemed surprised at my question, "Why are you so happy?" He told me his life was good and he was taken care of. What more would he want?

Maybe, we decided, it's not about bad things happening to good people. Maybe it's about life events and how we react to them. Can we move forward day by day and mostly leave behind those difficult moments? Do we spend time fully processing the things that happen to us so that we can take each new day for what it truly is? Am I a victim or am I a survivor? We looked at some of our "bad" circumstances and realized that most everyone we know has been dealt some bad in their lives. Anyways, after a deep philosophical discussion on the issue over lunch, we both went back to work.

Later that afternoon, Jim came to my shop to tell me that our house had been broken into, our back door window shattered, the loose change in our cookie jar taken, my earring and jewelry collection mostly gone. And all I could do was laugh. Hadn't we just had this discussion?!

Apparently, life comes with both the bitter and the sweet. And I wouldn't have it any other way. For each bitter pill, I will spend my days looking for the sweetness out there. We will sweep up the broken glass, take our house back, find new earrings and move forward, knowing that we have caring neighbors. One of them, on hearing the news, brought us a jar of home canned peaches. "Here's something sweet to go with the bitter," he said. 

Maybe that's why, at this time of year, when the cucumbers start multiplying, I always make a batch of bread and butter pickles. Something both sweet and sour to remind myself that such is life...

Here is the recipe if you want to make them. 

Bread and Butter Refrigerator Pickles

1 bag of small pickle cucumbers

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

1/2 of Volcano pepper, minced

6 c. white vinegar

3 c. brown sugar

3 c. white sugar

1 1/2 t. turmeric

1 1/2 t. celery seed

2 1/2 T. mustard seed

Wash and chunk pickles. Add onion slices and hot pepper. Mix remaining ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Pour over the pickle mixture. Let cool. Cover with a lid and put in the refrigerator. (Make sure that they are not in a metal container.) Eat as needed.