#MicroblogMondays: Graham

I am watching a miracle unfold.
I first met Graham, an unemployed labourer when he was optimistic. Funny, grounded, determined, and full of faith. He'd lost his job in the recession, but was certain he'd find another soon.
Three years passed. Despite attending all the courses available from the Job Centre, and applying for forty or more jobs a week, he was still unemployed. Rumours began to circulate about Graham having, "anger issues" he became cold, bitter, resentful, and yes, bloody angry. I daren't enquire about his faith...
Today he bounced into the Salvation Army lunch club full of excitement. The new Aldi store that employed him last month is opening next Thursday. Graham is laughing and joking, he is calm and present and alive once more.
I see so much depression, sadness and misery amongst the unemployed. When I hear the rich, the powerful, the ignorant rant about ' welfare scroungers', I want to weep. Yes, I really do.
But then there is a miracle ... Not the getting of a job, but the anazing transformation when belief and self-respect are gained once more.

Having A Life

It begins with noticing that the floor needs cleaning and finding, for the very first time, that to bend down with a dustpan and brush, is really going to hurt. I stop to consider this  novelty as if analysing it is of greater importance that feeling it, and I decide that it is. 

I have a high pain threshold. I am capable of observing discomfort as an interesting phenomenum, wondering... ?  It's not going to overtake me, or stop me, but it is here to make me think. I am alive. Yes, and the sensations I have are pressing and real: not entirely pleasant, admittedly, but a reminder and a remembering, to have a life is a gift, or so it has always been to me. A strange reaction perhaps, and one that always makes my inside surface, and my outside smile. So, I may not be  able to bend much for a while, but I am resourceful, and I will learn to sit, or lie down to do the new things that hurt, and take on a different perspective. 

I sat old-age down and gave him a good talking to. "You and I are are going to be together for quite some time, so we're going to have to learn to get along!" Can't swear to it, but I think I hear laughter. Perhaps it's yours!