Every day now, I receive Spam comments to my blog. They are usually some thinly veiled advertisement, badly translated from another language–a word salad of barely intelligible meaning. Today, I received kind of a hostile comment on one of my posts. I didn’t save it so I am paraphrasing. “I am disappointed in your blog. I hope it will not be so disappointing next time. You keep crying about your situation just to get attention.” Then there was a link to some product. I imagine the tactic is to get people mad enough to click the link, in hopes of sending off an angry email. By that time, it is too late and they will have become the next set stars of the company’s Spam-a-lot production.

I did not click on the link. But I did think you’d appreciate seeing what post was criticized for being so whiny:

 

Lots of Kindness

Although my husband may disagree in matters related to my attitude toward his contributions to housekeeping, I am a pretty positive person. I believe in the inherent value of people even if they do “bad things” or worse, even if they annoy me. Even with my above average rosy view of humanity, I am absolutely blown away by the kindness I have received regarding my cancer. There is at least one person praying for me (a chaplain at St. James’ Cathedral) who has never met me. My friends and relatives have been beyond kind and helpful. The various technicians and nurses at Swedish and their partner health care offices tend to my comfort, ask me for the names of my doctors, and tell me that I have an “excellent team” caring for me.

I sure don’t like being seriously ill but this is pretty sweet. No wonder Huck Finn (or was it Tom Sawyer) faked his own death so he could hear all of the nice things that people said about them. No wonder people have trouble with malingering or Munchausen’s by proxy. All of this attention could be addictive to some people.

But no worries. As much as I am touched by the kindness around me I look forward to the day it will not have to be so obvious and necessary. I look forward to being taken for granted. (Okay, that last bit is dishonest. I hate being taken for granted! Ah, the song of a mom of a teenager.) Let’s just say, I look forward to the day when I am not taking up so much space in the worry parts of people’s brains.

In the meantime, keep the prayers and positive vibes coming. I’ll send mine your way, too.