Attitude...

Is everything.

I'm posting this so I can retread it when life gets hard. 

The 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud woman, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o'clock, with her hair fashionably coifed and makeup perfectly applied, even though she is legally

blind, moved to a nursing home today. 

Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary. 

After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready. As she maneuvered her walkerto the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, Including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on her window. 

"I love it," she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having Just been presented with a new puppy. "But wait, you haven't seen the room yet." "That doesn't have anything to do with it," she replied.  "Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is arranged...it's how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it..."

She went on to say, "It's a decision I make every morning when I wake up.

I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I 

have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and

be thankful for the ones that do. Each day is a gift, and as long as my 

eyes open, I'll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I've stored

away...just for this time in my life. Old age is like a bank account...you

withdraw from what you've put in...So, my advice to you would be to deposit

a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories, so when you go over it

a second time, you can enjoy it again."