Losses and gains sometimes equal progress

A recent experience helped me to renew my life-long thoughts that most things do work out for the good, even if we have to wait a long time before we see the good. My recent example happened fairly soon and it was spelled out to me so I couldn't have missed the point.

Most of you know that my health is not as good as I would like, but it brought me a nice exchange in that I was able to get some part-time help which brought me more than a clean house. It brought me a strong friendship. That friendship will continue but the part-time help had to stop because of the friend's health. You might say that it wasn't a true exchange for my health losses, which are continuing even after she could no longer help me out.

However one day last week I came home from a doctor visit and saw a large box addressed to me. It wasn't my birthday or Mother's Day so I was very curious about the source of this package. I opened the box and discovered a Roomba (I Robot) which I had never seen in person before. My acquaintance was merely dreaming about this creature as I saw it on television.

There was still no indication of where this gift had come from. But while we were still figuring out the initial set-up, a call came from our son in Texas who wanted to give me some warnings about our new little friend. I was to be careful about three things: plastic, strings or small cords, and stairs.

Since I hadn't fully understood what our gift could do, I wondered why these three things were to be avoided. Mark then told us that his grandson, Carter, loved their "Robbie" and frequently wanted his grandparents to let "Robbie" out to clean already clean floors. He also said that Carter had a bad habit of running outside and leaving the door open. They cured him of doing that by telling him if he left the door open Robbie might go outside and clean one of the neighbors' houses. I decided that our robot was feminine so I named her Roberta so she and Robbie could claim they are twins separated at birth.

I asked Mark how he happened to think of giving this gift, and what was the gift celebrating. He replied that it was to help replace my part-time helper because he could not physically come help me. I told him it was a wonderful gift and proceeded to have several fun times demonstrating her to family members as they came.

And of course, I let it get caught up in a very thin cord that fed the earphones that Lester uses to hear the television without driving me crazy with news programs all day long. But it wasn't that hard to unroll the brushes and retrieve the cord. Next time I'll realize that Roberta will even venture into hidden corners our former vacuum avoided.

Even though I personalized this new helper by giving her a name, Roberta may clean well and effortlessly, she doesn't bring any news from town, ask about our family or tell me about hers. Well I do know a little about her twin brother.

So, back to the idea of losses and gains, I am looking for something else I could lose and perhaps get it replaced with another great gift.