Riches

“Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.” Oscar Wilde

I wonder if we were able to see the wealth of memories, love, friendship, happiness, contentment and pleasures accrued that each of us carry within us we would come to terms with what we consider to be missing from our lives.

I am incredibly blessed to live in a lovely house with a beautiful garden in a town with a low crime rate. If I leave my car unlocked for 10 minutes while I bring in groceries the chances are that the remaining bags will still be there when I return. I can walk around my unfenced garden without fear of intruders. A walk around the neighbourhood is possible in the middle of the night. My dog barks because it wants to come inside not because there is a stranger standing in my driveway. I wake up every morning to a view of woods and sky. Rarely do I hear passing traffic and I do not have any complaint with my neighbours. Within my house there are the usual disagreements that happen when 6 people share a house. Even when there are two in the house there are occasional moans and grumbles. Being human seems to make that a given.

I have food on my table three times a day. A pantry with goods in it that come from a clean and safe supermarket. I take tablets every day purchased from a pharmacy where I am able to pay for the medication I need. My milk is from cows treated for TB and I have clean drinking water and enough of it. I have bathrooms and the plumbing works.

The list is long. The positive far outweighs the negative. I don't live on a farm as I would love to. I don't have a career or a well paid job. I don't have youth but I have had it even if it was unappreciated at the time. I am not really talented at anything but I have children and grandchildren who listen to my stories. I can't draw or paint (even after Anne's lessons!) but I have the wonder of colour in my life. Crayons in my drawer, paper galore, colouring books, embroidery silks, wools to knit, a camera to capture precious moments, books to read, eyes and ears to see and hear the music of life.

I am blessed by riches that are more than most of the world's population will ever know. Yet when I had been diagnosed with cancer all I wanted was to be healthy again. To be able to look at myself in the mirror and see the me that had existed before the cancer cells began. The me that took for granted so much. If someone had walked into the room and told me that if I gave away every physical possession I had and I would be able to be rid of the cancer in an instance I would not have hesitated to do so. If that person had told me that in order to be cancer free I had to never hear my grandson laugh again, never hug my daughters, never hold my husband's hand, never laugh with friends or talk with my siblings I would have told them that I would fight the cancer because a life without those treasures would be no life.

Every day we receive small blessings that we take for granted because we are not challenged by a crisis that forces us to see them. Those small blessings add up to the real riches that are kept safe because they are within us. They can not be lost, stolen, destroyed by earthquake or fire. They are not take away by flood nor are they destroyed with time. In the last moment on the last day they are with us. Collected and carried through all the days of our lives.

The best life is the one which is a treasury of kindnesses given and received, love offered and accepted, laughter splashed and coloured with passion for the everyday because at the end of our hours that is what we are - a collection of what we have given and what we have been freely given.