Good Morning, Sunshine

Good Morning, Sunshine!!!! Here in Toronto it's just one of those fabulous days that only the fall can bring. I took an Alaska cruise about six years ago, and the Captain - the stunning Bjorn Broch Johansen, started every morning with that over the tannoy - followed with "If you're not up yet, wakey wakey!!!" I won't tell you some of the things we thought of doing to Bjorn but couldn't, as he was the captain, after all. A very funny woman at the dinner table told him ever so quietly that he needed to be a little softer However, the more I think about it, the more I think it's a really good attitude to life. So hats off to Bjorn (wherever you are on the ocean today). Of course, it's easy when one wakes up and the sun is shining, the sky is blue and the day is beautiful. It's harder when the sun doesn't shine, it's pouring rain, or snowing - and life doesn't have the same optimistic cast as it does other days. Almost fifty years ago, I remember sitting in church listening to my father preach at Deer Lodge United Church in Winnipeg - one of his last sermons. He and my mother had just separated, and I was the only sibling left at home. He spent about three days in bed not talking or eating, and then on Sunday he got up and preached about life - that whatever life brings - whether death, great disappointment, deep hurt, disease or pain, that *life is good* and that we learn to appreciate how good it is as we struggle to cope with the deeply painful and difficult times. I don't think it's accidental that my father was a member of the Optimist's Club. He told me once that he thought I wasn't listening, and then at a Confirmation Class he suddenly realised I was indeed listening. One of the things left after Dad died was his membership plaque in the Optimist's Club. I think it's worth hanging on to, because life *is* good. No matter what it brings to us. In a world where so many have almost nothing, and we are privileged, life is good. All of it.