For the first 50 years of my life, my perfectionist self mistakenly believed it was all about knowing more, getting it right, planning, attempting to prevent bad things from happening, and keeping all of my chicks in a row. It took me this long to discover that the JOURNEY is all that matters. This quote from Gilda Radner sums it all up:

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.
"


Friday, October 19, 2012

Blessings in Disguise

"There are no mistakes, no coincidences. 
All events are blessings given to us to learn from. "
                   ~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

When things happen in my life,  I trust that there is a reason.
The reason is not always evident at the time, but looking back
I can see the good that came about, the change it may have forced
upon me, or the growth that occurred because of it.

It's the unpleasant events I am referring to now.

After all, we don't usually try to find reasons for the joyful ones.

Perhaps it's just my way of dealing with the difficult ones, like
loss, sadness, disappointment, and despair.

This past month, my family has experienced things that stop and make
you think.

One such event was the hospitalization of my husband, Vance.

Totally healthy one day, and a few days later - not.

After bringing him to the Emergency Room one day a few weeks ago
and coming home alone with no answers to his unbearable headaches
and fever, I lay awake for much of the night with my mind racing.

I thought about all he means to our family.







And  I thought about what our lives would be like without him.

I can't really speak for the kids, but possibly a few of these same
thoughts could have crossed their minds too because Adam and Kerry
came home from college to spend time in the hospital with him.

And I'm sure over the past three weeks that Vance has contemplated
many things too.

We have discovered that Vance has Legionnaire's Disease that
he picked up while at a business conference in Utah earlier in September.
He's recovering - although more slowly than we imagined - but home
from the hospital and doing well.

Is it weird for me to think, even now, that this was a blessing in disguise?

1 comment:

  1. Wow - sorry to hear about all that Vance and the rest of you have been through! I hope he is doing OK now. How do they trace it to a specific location? Were there others who became ill, too?

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