Like most people do, I complain about bad things that happens to me. From slipping and falling on ice in February to the deaths of five of my very good friends in the past few years, I find it impossible to not snarl at life and its wide range of problems and disappointments. Sometimes it comes in waves. Using bad weather as a cliché, “when it rains it pours.”

We are foolish to think that since the day we are born we should expect infinite happiness and fairy tale endings to every day. Success and good happenings do not define our character. To appreciate the best that life has to offer, we must often travel down many a dark road before we can see the light. It’s not that we welcome failure and tragedy; it’s how we pick ourselves up from our stumbles and calamities that makes us who we ultimately become.

American illustrator, James A. Owen said, “Bad things can happen and often do, but they only take up a few pages of your story and anyone can survive a few pages.” When the “you know what” hits the fan, we pause to reflect and once we get past our complaining and through our deepest grief, we become different people than we were before.

Rather than continue to carry a burden of sorrow about my friends who have died, I mobilize my memories of so many good times with them to help me appreciate the moments that I now spend. I laugh up at the sky when I think of Eddie telling me jokes when he was drunk. Billy, my great friend and assistant football coach, left me with a vocabulary of slang words that only he and I understood, but that I still speak today. Whenever I fish, I hear Tommy shouting, “the bigger the bait, the bigger the fish” down from the heavens. Brad battled cancer until the very end and never experienced real love. We who are in a loving relationship should count our blessings. Tim was a very Catholic man, but he did not cast me aside after I got divorced. George willed me the courage to speak what’s on my mind and not worry what others might think.

Author Melanie A. Smith wrote, “Bad things happen all the time to good people who’ve done nothing to deserve them. Only you can choose how to handle it; whether to press through it and overcome it or succumb to self-pity.”

So, what had bothered me for years as a kid has been channeled into a much greater understanding. When I was 11, I asked for a hockey game for Christmas and I gave my parents a picture of the one I wanted with the pull and push rods that operate the players. I got a two-player game that broke in a month. I asked for a slot car race set the next Christmas with winding tracks and multiple lanes for several NASCARs. I got a figure-eight track with two cars that stopped working soon after the new year. With not much money and chronic debilitating illnesses, my parents gave me what they could. I have learned to appreciate everything I have today.

Think of what life delivers to us. We’d never feel happy if there wasn’t sadness. Success would not be realized if we didn’t fail. True love could not be understood unless we had failed before at trying to achieve it.

Author Richelle E. Goodrich wrote, “The world seems to want us to be sad and angry because bad things frequently happen. But I say we should feel the opposite. We should be happy and cheerful because good things happen. We should be delighted to see the sun rise and stars glow and rainbows color stormy skies. We should savor every simple breath and eat each meal with gratitude. We should slumber in sweet dreams and relish moments of laughter and love. We should take more notice of the joys and kindnesses that do exist, still dictating the actions of millions of good people all over the world. Life is filled with pleasant moments, not just grief. We should be happy because this is true.”

Yes, it is true, Richelle, but that does not make a car accident or necessary surgery any easier to accept. We are human. I was upset when I broke a tooth while I was on vacation. I was sad when my beloved brother-in-law had to have five hours of open heart surgery. My tooth problem was fixed when I returned home and he came though fine after a quadruple bypass operation.

I recently had an eye-opening experience with my favorite author, Mitch Albom who spoke at a gathering in Scranton. He talked about a young Haitian girl who was diagnosed with a terminal brain disease. He and his wife took her home with them and for the seven years of her life, she brought such love and enjoyment into their lives though they were fully aware that despite the best medical care she had received, they could not save her.

“People get mad at God when a terrible tragedy like a sweet little girl dies,” Albom said. “It’s about perspective. We didn’t lose our little girl. She was given to us by God and we were blessed to have her in our lives for the time she was with us.”

Perhaps author Megan Duke best explains the human condition. “It’s sad that bad things have to happen in order for us to stop and look around.”

Yes. It’s sad, Megan. We are often too blind to see what wonderful treasures life has to offer that are right in front of our eyes every single day.

Rich Strack can be reached at richiesadie11@gmail.com