I've been strugging with life. One of my siblings is suffering from a severe mental disorder and has been hospitalized twice in the last three months. Another sibling is battling a recurrence of cancer and he doesn't want to go through anymore treatments. My 77 year old mother is having back surgery next week and to tell you the truth she's the strongest one of the bunch of us! She's exercising and pushing herself to get herself out of bed and back into her old life. Just this evening she told me she's figthting because she has to be an example for my two siblings--she's got to show them how to fight for their lives, she says. My mom was a teacher for 30 years and now she's teaching us the most important lesson of our lives. It makes me think of Anne Davis and her courageous mother. I think often of a buddhist guidance: "Suffer what there is to suffer. Enjoy what there is to enjoy. Regard both suffering and joy as facts of life and continue..."