Has there ever been a person who has gone through life unscarred? I doubt it because there is no such thing as a perfect life. Good times and bad times are all part of the human condition.Scars come in different forms – physical, emotional and mental. No matter what form scars take, anguish is it’s partner.

Today, on All Things Fulfilling, since we are focusing on things that might make life easier – think about this statement:

Understood! Save yourself some heartbreak by simplifying how you look at pain or sorrow. Change the perspective from difficulty to triumph. That’s all I’m saying but you can learn more about this issue through my award-winning memoir Gift of a Lifetime: Finding Fulfilling Things in the Unexpected.

This blog is brought to you by Sue Batton Leonard.

Do you remember playing tug-of- war on the play ground?

The physical education teacher marked the the pavement with chalk, threw down a hefty rope and teams were chosen at the discretion of the teacher or the team captains. Then began the battle to see which team had the greatest strength and persistence and could pull the other team over the line.

A few weeks ago when I talked with Kiwanis, I read aloud a chapter from my memoir called Having Faith in Oneself. Essentially it is about Fanny’s advice to me about the feelings I had when I was left out of the crowd on the playground due to my childhood illness. Fanny is the stellar character in my memoir who was a very sage woman.

Now that I am an adult, I understand what she was hinting at in one of our heart-to- heart conversations. One day…

“Innocence tinctures all things with the brightest hues.” ~Edward Counsel

Last summer my sister and I returned to our childhood community.

In our travels we discussed how things aren’t always how they seem to be. In our youthful minds two hills that were in our neighborhood, which we climbed to go to the bus stop and to visit our friends up the street, seemed to be ginourmous. Oh how they added to the burdens we beared as we headed off to school with our backpacks feeling unprepared – homework not completed, reading assignments ignored and mounting peer pressure as we matured.

As adults we saw for ourselves that the many challenges we faced were merely molehills rather then mountains. With age, everything comes into real perspective.

In my memoir, I mention childhood illness, and how fortunate I was to go through the most difficult times of my life unaware of…

“It is well for the heart to be naive, and the mind not to be.” ~ Anatole France

I remember feeling slighted. It seemed like all the kids in the neighborhood had their tonsils and adenoids removed except me.  As a child, it didn’t matter to me that I had lived through pioneering heart surgery, I still wished I could get my tonsils out like many of my buddies.

Apparently, according to this article, twice as many tonsillectomies were performed in the 1950s and 1960s as today. http://seattletimes.com/html/health/2015264059_med10.html.

To a kid, getting tonsils and adenoids removed  meant eating ice cream! And lots of it! Ice cream was one of the few foods that I really adored when I was growing up. And to go to the soda fountain counter at S.S. Kresges or Reads Drugstore for a scoop in an ice cold silver dish with a doily between the dish and…