THE POWER TO CHOOSE YOUR ATTITUDE

Our daughter asked us to go with her and our 17 year-old grandson to Hot Springs, Tennessee. Her 43 year-old husband had died a year earlier of a heart attack and they didn’t want to spend Thanksgiving Day at home.

A friend in the hotel industry had provided them a room, at a discount, so we enthusiastically made plans for an exciting weekend.

 We sent for brochures and discovered there were three lakes at Hot Springs. Since we are originally from Canada, and loved lakes, we were looking forward to our trip. There were also plenty of restaurants and interesting places to explore.

We began our trip and as we travelled we talked about all of the exciting things we had planned.  We arrived at the hotel and went to bed early so we could get a jump start, on a jam packed day. We dressed quickly, with anticipation.  It had been a long time since any of us had been on a vacation.

After a good rest, in a beautiful room, we rushed down to the parking lot to discover we had lost the keys to our car.

 We frantically retraced our steps of the previous night. We looked through pockets, suitcases and even sent our grandson down to the dumpster, thinking somehow the keys had been thrown out with the trash, but to no avail. We could not find the keys. We found a coat hanger and straightened it and tried to break into the car but it didn’t work for us. We called lock smiths but they were all closed until after Thanksgiving.  We were stuck.

What to do? It felt like our day was ruined. We talked together and decided we would make the best of the day. The most important decision we came up with was that none of us could have a bad attitude. We would not be angry or miserable or unkind to each other because we didn’t get to do what we wanted to do.

We looked for our options. We had lots. The hotel was beautiful and provided a free breakfast. So we partook. It had a wonderful swimming pool and workout room, which we took advantage of. As our disappointment disappeared our excitement returned.

It was Thanksgiving Day, so we decided to remember what the day really meant and we all tried hard to be thankful for our many blessings. In fact, we played a game.  Each of us took turns telling what we were thankful for.  Our game lasted a long time and gave us a good feeling inside.

We also realized that there were many things in this resort area which were within walking distance of our hotel. We went out on foot. It was a beautiful sunny day, which was a blessing in itself. We found that we were having a wonderful time walking together, laughing together and discovering many sights of this new city which we would have never discovered if we had been in a car.

 After a fun day exploring, we found a quaint restaurant, close to the hotel, which we would not have seen, if we weren’t on foot.  It was a restaurant the local people went to with a charming atmosphere and excellent service. We had a marvelous Thanksgiving dinner. Our unplanned day ended in a delightful way.

 The icing on the cake was, when we got back to our hotel, a kind service man, knowing our plight, had made us a special tool, which we used to get into the car. When our grandson thankfully opened the door, there were the car keys. They had fallen on the floor, between the passenger seat and the door, so we could not see them.  Our daughter had thought she had thrown them into her purse but they had fallen on the floor, instead.

 As we looked back at our day, we realized we had not gotten to do any of the things we had planned to do. We were amazed at how much fun we’d had.  We were glad we had lost the car keys. In fact we decided we’d had our best Thanksgiving Day, ever. We also learned a good lesson for the future – You Can Make the Best of Bad Times and we did.