The other day, as I moaned and groaned because part of the ceiling under my garage roof caved in after heavy rains, I was reminded of something.

I don't know who said it: "If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back." So true.

We think it rains on OUR parade, but we forget it rains somewhere almost every day -- literally and as a catch phrase.

Our problems seem few and less devastating when we compare them to what others are facing.

I was chatting with a friend a few days after I got estimates to repair my roof, and, after bemoaning the cost and my bad luck, I asked about another friend we both knew.

"How's he doing?" I asked, recalling the gentleman, highly respected, had some serious business woes and health issues.

"He lost everything," replied my friend. "He's not young, and he's not well. He even lost his car -- everything."

What roof?

We have only to listen to the news or read our newspapers daily to put our gripes and groans in perspective.

Everyday occurrences take us by surprise, and it's human nature to question the timing and the disruption it can cause in our lives.

Then we see the crane falling on someone's car; the water line bursting and flooding a neighborhood; everything someone owns lost in a fire; a tragic collision on a highway; an unhappy teenager who ends his life as well as others'; a Make-A-Wish child.

It's all relative. We can't be blamed as insensitive for feeling our own personal sense of loss when something happens to us. Putting it all in perspective should come easily. It doesn't. We need to be reminded, and reminded often.

I did. I do.

Perhaps the roof collapse was meant to do just that, although I don't think we should need such an incident to bring us to the realization there are people suffering every day in worse ways, in ways we can't even imagine, all over the world.

But when something bad does happen -- maybe just inconvenience as opposed to real loss, human or property related -- we should take a few minutes to get real.

Read the newspaper. Today's or yesterday's, it doesn't matter. In Pittsburgh or in Boston or in Indiana.

Sad news never takes a holiday. News often much worse than yours. We need to take time to absorb what is fixable and what changes our lives forever.

My roof is fixable.

If someone had been under the heavy plaster board which fell, it might have been one of those small paragraphs relating a fatal accident the next day at the bottom of Page 12.

Chances are we would have skipped over the story because it was somebody else's problem, not ours.

We have become so accustomed to Iraq in the headlines, and numbers of servicemen and civilians simply blown up, we almost dismiss it as ordinary and turn from it to read our horoscope or seek a roofer.

Sometimes, when I'm sitting on my small deck watching the cardinals great each other on the lilac branch, or watching something as silly as Billy Ray Cyrus trying to do the samba on TV, I forget how carefree or worry-free a day has been.

I forget to be grateful for the good days.

And I'm sure I will do so again.

If you catch me complaining about the weather, the price of gas, needing a new screen for my front door, the arthritis in my fingers OR the cost for the new garage roof -- it's OK to ignore me. Or scold me.

Then I can complain about you as well. What kind of friend are you, not listening to my gripes?

Just kidding. Remind me I wrote this column. Remind me to shape up.

Remind yourself as well. Nobody's perfect.