This column is about patience and how water can try that patience. There has been all sorts of flooding near Houston, Texas. I’m sure you’ve seen all the terrible images on television news. Everyone’s patience is being tried.
That trying time is going to be going on for a lot longer.
Water can teach you a lot about patience. When I was in the third or fourth grade, we learned a word. That word was tantrum. You might know that word as “pitching a fit, throwing a hissy fit, having a crying spell, acting like a baby.”
You might have some different saying for tantrum. We learned the word in class that day as a temper tantrum. One of our classmates said that she had a temper tantrum and thought that would help her get what she wanted.
She said she would tell us about it at recess. Wow! We were going to learn how to really have a temper tantrum and our parents would give us anything we wanted.
At recess, five of us gathered round to learn the secret of getting want we wanted by having this temper tantrum. My classmate was rather impatient with everything.
Her fourth husband says she is still impatient.
She wanted something, and her mother would not give it to her. She started screaming and crying and throwing the temper tantrum.
Her mother told her to be quiet. She screamed louder. Her mother went to the sink, got a glass of water and threw the water in her face.
The water had a rather strange effect. She got a good gulp of water, was wet down the front of her shirt and was shocked so much she quit screaming.
Her mother walked off and she didn’t get what she wanted.
I never tried having a temper tantrum after hearing all that.
That water can really calm you down. Then it can really try your patience.
That takes us to the flood. There are a lot of people dealing with the reality of water. Ever spill a bucket full of water? It takes a while to mop it up doesn’t it?
Try putting a fan nearby and dry the floor. That takes a long time, also. Multiply that clean up by thousands or millions and you realize that patience will be tried and a lot of time will pass before all this water can be dried up.
This brings us to the patience part. Now you hear a lot of complaints about everything to do with the floods. Nobody helping, roads impassable, electricity out and a list of other things. It is probably time to get a glass of water and throw it in our own faces.
That little shock that helped my classmate so many years ago might help us now. Settle down and start on the small stuff first. Your house can’t be fixed over night.
The water will teach you that it will take a lot of evaporation and wind and cleaning up before you can start on the other things.
Hurricane Hugo taught us here in South Carolina that people could be burdened with too much help. If you get a tractor-trailer load of prom dresses and winter coats, you might have more trouble handling this stuff in 90-degree heat than is worth the effort.
If someone gave you a $20 bill, you might not find a place to spend it for a week.
My heart goes out to people that are fighting such a hard battle. I hope that I can do something and contribute in some way to help. I’m also trying to be patient. If I can wait until I know something that I do will actually help.
Until then, I’m waiting so my contribution can truly mean something. I don’t want to feel that my efforts were just a glass of water thrown in someone’s face.
