Can you find the silver lining?

We were driving. My kid said, “Mom, do you know that this woman was texting and driving and she got in an accident and one kid got hurt and now he can’t walk?”

Before I could say anything, she added, “But at least no one was seriously injured.”

“Um, honey, not being able to walk is a serious injury,” I said.

She replied, “Well I guess, but it could be worse. At least he can move his arms.”

Later the same night, I began talking to myself while trying to get across four lanes of traffic. I said something to the effect of, “I’m going to have to turn right and then make a U turn so I can go left. Otherwise we’ll get in an accident.”

She said, “The good thing about us getting in an accident would be that I wouldn’t have to go to school tomorrow.”

This made me laugh. I said, “I’m glad you can see the silver lining in so many situations.”

Then she asked me what the silver lining was. I told her we’d have to Google it.

I’ve thought a lot about those conversations this past week. Saturday an early snowstorm hit the north east coast, knocking out power for days. By Sunday evening, our house was 55 degrees and both cell phones and the iPad were almost dead. We lit candles and tried to carve a pumpkin. It was around this time that we realized my husband had stepped in dog poop and then tracked it through the house. We might have noticed this sooner if any of us could actually see anything. Had something not smelled quite off, we might not have noticed at all.

Still, I realized that I might never have gotten around to carving the pumpkin had the power not gone out. I’m sure I would have found 11 or more other things to do, as I’ve done every year before. The power outage was good for something.

The following morning, my husband found another silver lining. Our hot water heater was powered by gas rather than electricity. My husband turned the shower on full force and practically threw me in with my clothes on.

“Isn’t that awesome?” he shouted.

Oddly, I had to admit that it was.

With about 2 percent left on my phone battery, several messages came in from people asking me why I had not responded to their requests for this or that.

I decided the flee the state.

If I went to my parent’s house two hours away, I’d be able to plug in my computer, use Dad’s wifi, and deal with all of these people who obviously were unaware that the entire North East coast was cold and in the dark.

It was around the time that I formed my escape plan that my husband informed me that my windshield wipers no longer worked. By no longer worked, I don’t mean that I needed new wiper blades. No, I mean that they did not swish swash.

It was just the latest of things to go wrong with my car. Just the week before, I realized my radio antenna no longer worked either. Only one station came in, and it was one that rarely, if ever, had songs that anyone wanted to listen to.

“But at least it’s not raining,” he said.

That was true.

When I arrived at my parent’s house, I said that I would need to see a mechanic pronto. “I can live without air conditioning. I can live without a dishwasher. I can live without closet doors, and I can live without living room blinds,” I said, referring to the many things in our home that had broken over the past year. I went on. “I can live without a car radio, and I can live with a refrigerator that freezes the food in the back, but doesn’t keep the stuff in the front as cold as it should. I can live with a toaster that only cooks the top of food and not the bottom. I can live with two out of three light bulbs burned out in the bedroom. And I can even live in your house instead of my own. But I simply cannot live without a windshield wiper. I just cannot. What would I do if it rained and I had to go somewhere? I cannot live that way. No, I just cannot.”

By the end of my little tirade, everyone was laughing, including me. I was actually glad that so many things had broken and that the power had gone out. It all gave me an excuse to visit my parents. We had such a good time together.

As it turned out, the power came back on sooner than expected, so I drove home before I had the chance to get my windshield wiper fixed. I came home to a burned out porch light and a refrigerator full of rotten food.

My windshield wiper is still broken and so is everything else on that long list of woes. The dog also threw up tonight, on a place in the carpet that I really can’t ignore. It’s right next to my desk chair. Figures.

But I feel content—and downright happy—because the people I love are healthy and they love me back. When it comes down to it, that’s all that really matters. Perhaps that is always the silver lining.

UPDATES

* This review of Project: Happily Ever After in Baltimore’s Child made me smile. I loved this review so much that I’m pretty sure it would have made me smile even if the power was still out. It would make me smile even if my dog threw up again and even if my husband tracked poop through the house again. It’s that good.

* Mary Ellen O’Toole, PhD, the former FBI profiler I worked with on Dangerous Instincts, gave a great interview during the Leonard Lopate Show on NPR. She was also on Fox and Friends during their Halloween show. It was fun to share the green room with a bunch of people who were dressed like ghouls. And MyItchyTravelFeet.com did a great review of the book.

* Copyright ProjectHappilyEverAfter.com. If you are reading this on a site other than ProjectHappilyEverAfter.com, this post has been used without the permission of the author and you are reading a site that regularly publishes stolen content.