A REALLY BAD DAY!

       A REALLY BAD DAY !  

   

At our senior missionary retreat last October at  Bear Lake, our mission President Ed Kumferman gave a wonderful lesson on happiness. In his lesson he shared a story related to him by his good friend Dr Gary Waddoups. We share his story with permission.

Dr. Waddoups is an animal science professor at BYU Idaho and also a practicing vet. One day an imigrant family of parents, children and grandparents, showed up at his clinic with a scruffy white and black dog. Dr. Waddoups said “ you have never seen such an emaciated mess in all your life. He had one  red swollen eye and what looked to be a large dirt clod on his head.His coat was dirty and unkempt, and he was very gaunt.”

One small child spoke English, and interpreted for an older woman. “We want you to fix Cholo.”

Dr. Waddoups was shocked, “You want him fixed?”

“Yes, the old woman said. “He’s broken.”

He realized that by “fixed” they meant healed. In broken English, the mother began to explain. “ A week ago, Cholo ran into the road and was hit by a car. It didn’t kill him but he was badly hurt. His eyeball was popped out and his skull was cracked. We could see his brain! We knew he could not live, and so my husbands friend took him into the desert and put him to sleep.”

“How did he put him to sleep?” the good doctor asked.

She answered that he had shot Cholo five times.

Dr. Waddoups commented, “He must not have been a very good shot!”

“Oh no”, came the reply. “Cholo was dead and we burried him in a shallow grave.”

Dr. Waddoups was becoming more perplexed at this bizarre story and asked  how the dog got home.

The woman answered, “ an hour ago the phone rang, and my husband’s boss said, “Your dog is out here, and he doesn’t look very good. You better come and get him.” “We tried to explain that it could not possibly be our dog, that he had been dead for a week! But he said he was sure it was our dog, and that we had better come down. It was Cholo, and so here we are.”

Dr. Waddoups was still not sure what they wanted him to do, so he asked, “So you want us to put him to sleep?”

The mother became anxious and began to shake her head. “No! No! Cholo is a good dog! After all of this, he came home to us! We want you to fix him!”

Dr. Waddoups later reflected that our four footed friend Cholo truly had had a bad day. In fact, Cholo had set a new standard for bad days! He had been hit by a car, his skull fractured , and his eyeball popped out of it’s socket.  He had been taken out into the desert, away from his family, and shot five times. Then, to top off this bad day, he was buried alive!

Dr. Waddoups then went about to “fix” Cholo as best he could. He later observed, “ With Cholo as my new standard, I would submit that I have never really ever had a bad day!

As you begin a New Year and go about your days, we realize that you might just have a bad day every now and then, but we hope you’ll remember our canine friend Cholo to help keep your  bad day in perspective.  We hope you’ll remember President Nelson’s wise observation when he said that, “The joy we feel has very little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.” ( Russell M. Nelson- “Joy and Spiritual Survival” Conf. Oct.2016)           

It was Abraham Lincoln who is reported to have said, “ Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

This New Year we hope you’ll have mostly good and happy days! We hope you’ll use our friend Cholo as your new standard for bad days and just maybe at years end you too can say with Dr. Waddoups-“ I have never really ever had a bad day!”

Much Love,

The Grandparent Chronicles