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    My mother was the first to notice how our son Spencer’s feet and nose pointed in different directions when he walked. We took him to the bone doctor, who laid our one-year-old on a table and looked him over.

    “Your son has turned-in feet and a hernia,” he informed us. “The feet we can fix with arch supports, but he’ll need an operation for the hernia.”

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    Surgery was scheduled for the following day I called Mom to tell her the news. She reminded me that hernias were a family tradition. My younger brother David had one when we were little and shared a bedroom. I remembered.

    Mom and Dad had called the kids together. “David will need an operation,” they told us.“Could it kill him?” my sister asked.

    “We never know,” Dad said, “so we’d better pray.”

    I prayed, but not too hard, since I’d always wanted a bedroom of my own.

    David not only survived, he came home from the hospital with the neatest toys. His was the perfect childhood illness — serious enough to merit presents, but not so painful he couldn’t play with them.

Some scars are a long time healing.

    On the day of Spencer’s surgery, my dad met us at the hospital. I’d “guilted” him into it. Fifteen years before, he’d skipped my high school graduation. Sitting in a boiling gym while a local pundit admonished the students to rise above their mediocrity wasn’t Dad’s idea of a good time. So he stayed home. Now he feels guilty about it and pretty much does whatever I ask, especially if I start humming “Pomp and Circumstance.” So I called him and pointed out that my therapist feels very positive about my chances for a complete recovery barring any further rejection and, sure enough, Dad was at the hospital bright and early.

    Everything came out fine. The arch supports did the trick, and the half-hour surgery was textbook. Even the scars went away. Blessed is the family whose gravest problems are so easily remedied.

    A cousin of mine gave birth some years ago. A long-faced doctor came out and told her that her son had three holes in his heart. It tore a hole in her heart, too. Some scars are a long time healing.

    One thing I’ve never understood is why I’m so blessed — good parents, good wife, good kids, good job — and others aren’t. I used to think it was because I was nice to God, until I met some battered saints. Now I just think there’s a randomness in this world beyond my understanding. The apostle Paul said that on this side of things we see in a mirror dimly.

    If you woke up this morning and your kids were healthy and your parents loved you, then you don’t have any problems. You might think you do, but you don’t. And if at night, when you steal into your child’s room and watch her little body rise and fall with the breathing, and your heart aches with love, consider your life sublime.

From the book Front Porch Tales, by Philip Gulley. © 1997 by Multnomah Pub., used by permission.