What Can I Say?

Last night, the topic at my Tuesday Night Men’s Meeting was transitions.   I’m usually a stickler for staying on topic but I was taught that sometimes, you just have to talk about what’s hurting.  My Thursday meeting even has what we call a Hurting Section before a topic is chosen.  At any rate, I shared that my brother is in critical condition in a hospital in Mentor, Ohio … and a few details about what’s going on.  After the meeting, someone talked to me about a similar situation and how it helped him to remember that no situation is inherently good or bad, it just is what it is.  I want to be gentle here because I know that this man’s intentions were good.  It is a standard 12-Step approach to problems not to personalize what’s going on and to realize that good can spring from apparently bad events, but did he really think I’d consider my brother’s illness neutral?   I once walked into my Thursday meeting after taking my wife, Muri, to the hospital with a pulmonary embolism and, naturally I shared about my fears in the Hurting Section.