By Pattie Mihalik

newsgirl@comcast.net

Why is it when some people are hit with adversity they stay strong and get through it but others just collapse under the weight of their problems?

For years, I’ve wondered about that as I’ve watched the differences in the way people deal with bad stuff.

I’m always heartened when I see how strong some people are. And sometimes I’m surprised.

That’s how I feel right now about my friend Jeanne.

When Jeanne beams her beatific smile — and she seems to be smiling all the time — she seems to radiate a light that shines from within.

Yet, that “life is wonderful” smile belies the fact that she has to rely on a wheelchair because her muscles are paralyzed.

Her smile also hides the fact that much of her life has been filled with struggles and problems that would have felled someone with less resilience.

Because I find her inner strength inspirational, I asked if I could tell her story in my column. In our long talks together I discovered she is even more amazing than I knew.

As the oldest of seven children, Jeanne learned from an early age to simply dig in and do what she had to do.

“We were poor but my mother had self-reliance, and that was passed on to me. We figured out a way to do everything for ourselves,” she said.

To clean the windows in their fourth-floor tenement apartment, Jeanne had to hang from a rope tied around her while her mother hung on tight.

She says it was just another way she did what she had to do to get by.

A 10-year-old dangling four stories in the air with no support except the rope her mother was holding has to have guts.

And if there’s anything Jeanne has had in spades, it’s guts.

“I’m a tough broad,” she laughs. “My husband, Jerry, always said I was gutsy. It was one of the things he loved about me.”

She remembers their 28 years together as the happiest of her life.

But at 38 years of age, what Jeanne thought was just a bad case of the flu turned devastating.

“My gallbladder ruptured, and as a result damaged the internal organs in the peritoneal cavity,” Jeanne explains. Then several undetected blood clots made her condition worse.

The bottom line was that her internal organs were permanently paralyzed.

But even that wasn’t enough to stop Jeanne and her husband from enjoying life.

They took country trips in an RV, laughing like two kids. The laughter stopped the day Jeanne felt a lump while she was hugging her husband. Jerry battled cancer for four years before he passed away.

She admits she had a hard time handling that loss. She just stayed in the house and cried.

It was only when she decided to take her motorized scooter for trips around her mobile home park that she regained some of the joy in her life.

What made the difference?

“Little things,” she says. Having friendly neighbors stop to chat, enjoying nature, being talked into singing in a band and taking part in a grief counseling discussion group combined to show her she could find joy again.

I don’t want to make it all sound effortless. But I do want to emphasize it was when she did things to help herself that she started to heal.

Living alone when your muscles are paralyzed has so many challenges, she admits. She learned to get her wheelchair in the car by herself and to find ways to live independently.

It was while she was doing a good deed by visiting a sick friend that disaster struck again.

Jeanne’s van was sideswiped by a Mack truck, sending the van careening across four lanes before it slammed into a guide rail.

Jeanne suffered extensive injuries including a broken wrist, broken ribs and a broken back that required two rods and 58 stitches during surgery.

For weeks, she could do nothing but lie in bed in pain so severe pills weren’t able to help. Everyone who has suffered those kind of injuries knows how excruciating it is when physical therapy begins.

But instead of complaining, Jeanne begged the therapist to give her more of a workout, saying she would never get better if she didn’t work at it.

Frankly, none of us ever believed she could live on her own again. She couldn’t so much as cut her own food, much less make it. Some are insisting she has to move into assisted living because she can no longer get by on her own.

Jeanne, on the other hand, says she will get by on her own the same way she always has — through prayer and perseverance.

The professionals and most of her friends say she will never be able to do it. I, on the other hand, believe her when she says, “Don’t count me out.”

This is one gutsy lady who won’t give up.

Many of us all get hit with physical problems and many have really turbulent waters to navigate. Others have overwhelming family problems.

Some will sink. Others will swim.

Often, attitude makes a difference.

Life’s survivors are those who fight the hardest and, like Jean, refuse to go down for the count.

I went to see her yesterday and walked away knowing this: She’s going to make it.

Contact Pattie Mihalik at newsgirl@comcast.net.