By: Jan Price
Disposition. Dictionary definitions combined say, “the prevailing tendency of one’s spirit, quality of mind and character, mental and emotional outlook or mood.”
I love a good disposition. For me, being around someone with a good disposition is like the first day of spring, every time. It’s good for the soul. I would like to have a good disposition but life circumstances perhaps have made me more of a street fighter, a bit roughed up on the edges and I can’t seem to do anything about that.
In our Facebook Update group is a teacher friend who I worked with for years. I loved her gentle disposition and so did her students. Her nature was inherently easy, I thought, until meeting her sister who joined our teaching staff and she also had that beautiful disposition, predictably kind, took each day as it came, unruffled by the goings on. Their father was a big part of their lives and I started to want to meet him… just in time for parenting lessons to learn how to teach my own children to have that good way about them, never stirring up something or other yet not getting pushed around. Easy. Pulling it off. At the end of each school day, Peggy and her sister were people we were glad to have spent the day with, always part of the solution with a gentle smile. Our principal used to say to me, “What have you done now?” Once a mom who tried to keep her second grader home too much stopped by school to check him out, came to my classroom door and I stepped out asking why. She said a family member had died, I said, “I want to know who died.” When she told me, actually a friend of hers, “You’re not taking him out” escaped from my mouth. She left. Woops. Even still, I am sure my own children were impacted by this recognition and I am sure our home was better for it. Peggy has hung in there with Jackie’s recovery like you all have and we are grateful and can’t ever loop back enough to thank you enough. But know it’s so. Enter Pam. Her son has cystic fibrosis and we’ve been friends since coming together as a group of parents of young children with this disease trying to figure out what now, what next, what. I always know how Pam will be. Pam removes so many complications in life by being easy. What an impact on the lives around her. Pam spent time with Jackie last time in the hospital when I couldn’t be there. So good for Jackie.
Pam makes quilts… thematic quilts, clever and colorful quilts… for people when they retire or their dog dies, when they suffer or celebrate, Pam buried in her downstairs sewing room spreading her goodness. Yes, Jackie got a quilt in her favorite colors and “thank you” is not enough for the quilt or for the wonderfulness of Pam’s disposition. Enter Fae. Are dogs born this way or does Jamie have good disposition magic dust she sprinkles on her Chinese Cresteds? Fae has the best disposition. She’s easy. Maybe I’ll never be sure where the gentle toughness of a good disposition comes from. I never did follow up on meeting Peggy’s dad. And I continue to enjoy Pam’s without too much thinking about it. It just is. And Fae’s just is. And thankful for Jackie to have her. And Jackie is doing well, being Jackie, the good dispositioned street fighter that she is.
Jackie lately…
getting back to work next month eight hours per week responding somehow to her recent jury duty call researching viable health insurance options reading articles written about what happened to her planning her words for an upcoming speaking event enjoying continued independence with a sore muscle here or there
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