Day 8 of the 2026 A to Z Challenge Blog fot the letter G

Good morning. We made it to Day 8 although Day 7 and WordPress gave me a hard time yesterday and not only wouldn’t let me post a song for you, it insisted on posting when I wrote the post not when it should’ve. In order to make sure the blog is up in time, I post the day before. My blog is awake before I am.

It seems the weather report is part of my dailies now. Once again, Old Man Winter is upon us. Yesterday, the temperature was -2 C, feels like-9 with the wind, and we got some snow. Today, it’s -7, but sunny, and if we’re lucky, we’ll hit 6 this afternoon. I can only hope since I won’t be getting much done today. I have an appointment with the opthalmologist and after he puts drops in my eyes, I’ll be out of commission for the day. It’ll give me a chance to finish my audiobook.

Today’s letter is G. It can stand for many things, like grief, gifts, gratitude, graduations, and being a grandparent, but I’m going to focus on a simple word, GOOD.

There isn’t enough good these days. Everyone is looking for the superlatives, the perfects, the awesomes, the amazings, the fantatics, the extraordinary, all the while forgetting that sometimes good is as good as it gets, that sometimes, good is all you’ve got, all you can hope for. Going to the eye surgeon tomorrow is a good thing.

When I went to my optometrist back in December, she informed me that while my precription hadn’t changed enough to warrant new lenses, there were definite signs that I had developed cataracts. I was devastated. Me who loved to read and write losing my sight?

She quickly stemmed my panic by telling me that it was common at my age and easily fixed. It might not even worsen for a while, but if it did, then she might have to take away my driver’s license. Now, once more in full panic mode, I asked her what I could do. She referred me to the only eye surgeon in the city. So, the good thing is that I only had to wait four months for the appointment. Later this morning, he’ll give me a thorough (3 hours long) examination and we’ll discuss next steps. Cataract surgery is a lot more common than I knew. When I mentioned it to friends, I was amazed by the number of them who’d already had it.

There are all kinds of grief. Losing a loved one is the worst of course, but as you get older you grieve other things, many of which you might not have lost had you taken better care of yourself. Losing my sight would do it for me, but the other great loss is hearing.

When my husband was diagnosed with profound hearing loss, he was devastated. I’d seen it coming for years–the TV turned up too loud, the car radio blaring, but when he realized he couldn’t hear the grandkids, it hit home. He was missing so much of what they said. He agreed to get hearing aids. They help and yet they don’t. After years of only hearing so much, suddenly it can be overwhelming. When we go to concerts, the movies, out for drinks or dinner with friends, or when everyone talks at once around the dinner table, he removes them because the chaos is more than he can process. That kind of grief endures. Touch wood, my hearing is still good–not perfect but good enough that I don’t need hearing aids.

My final take on good is simple.

It’s easy to be good, to do good, and to see good in others. here’s my favorite song with good in the title because it reminds me of the good times.

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