Lesson 4 - Do what you can with what you get.

Charyl is not a complainer.  She’ll whine sometimes like every teenager, and she is currently searching for the answer to the question of why she has been chosen to suffer.  But her constant response to what has happened to her over the last 10 years is to find a way to make the best of it.  It seems like such a common lesson “If God gives you lemons, make lemonade”, but when you see your own daughter demonstrate it over and over, it comes home in a very real way.

Seven year old Charyl would take her Barbies to the hospital with her.  One time she forgot to bring the bag that had all the clothes.  Instead of being upset she and her mom fashioned new clothes from the medical supplies, using her pens to color the new clothes.  She enjoyed the project so much that the next time she went to the hospital she brought extra dolls, made clothes for them and passed them out to other kids on the floor.  More than once her projects included doing things like this for other kids, her art work hangs in the treatment room at Mott Hospital and sits on the conference room table at the Make a Wish Foundation, her many gifts of stuffed animals have been given away to mentally impaired kids or other kids who came with parents to visit.  Pillows made for her by a friend in Florida lay under the heads of other children with brain tumors who she knew needed comfort from the hard surfaces of the MRI machine and pain of fresh stitches. 

When Charyl’s vision made it hard for her to read she listened to books on tape and memorized poetry and stories she wanted to remember.  When she had long hours alone she learned how to draw and then string beads.  She focused her time and energy into making things that she enjoyed and that pleased others.  She loved making her jewelry.  Selling it was my idea that she went along with, she just loved to see people appreciate it and wear it. 

Charyl is the master of adaptation.  She always finds a way to take whatever she is dealt and make it into a winning hand for herself and often for others.

 Lesson 1 - Make the world around you a safer place.

Lesson 2 – There is no such thing as a bad day.

Lesson 3 - Friends will get you by.

Lesson 4 - Do what you can with what you get.

They are simple lessons.  They are remarkable to me because I have learned them firsthand from my little girl.  She learned them from me and her mom and her school and from extraordinary life experiences. They are all about making choices, taking responsibility, and building relationships.  Isn’t that what we’ve try to teach at LDA?