The China Doll

"The best years of my life came after what seemed at first a tragedy from which I could never recover. I had been a Dresden China Doll sort of wife. I'd grown up in too much luxury. I knew nothing. And so it happened that my husband ran our home, as well as his own successful business, while I accepted soft, sweet irresponsibility. 

Then one day his partner looted the firm and fled. A month later mu husband's over strained heart gave way. And I, ignorant heir to his wholesale butter-and-egg business, walked into his empty office and began to learn things. Friends begged me to sell out for whatever I could get. I was warned that I'd end in bankruptcy. But some invisible force drove me on. I stuck. I studied. I visited bankers, and wholesalers and customers, eagerly learning. Every night I fell into bed exhausted. But the Dresden China Doll had come to life at last. After a year, I was still horribly in debt. I had lost half the old customers. But I felt at home in the business.

Three years later I was on my feet, sure of myself. I was making almost as much as my husband had earned. Pretty good for an ex-China Doll. More old customers had come back. I ate better, slept better--- and joked oftener--- than ever before.

I was thirty-nine years old then. Now I'm turning fifty-nine. And I'm still in the best years of my life --- the years that have brought out the very best in me."

~ Anonymous, RD issue Art of Living.