Seventeen

If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans. ~ Unknown

Storm clouds rolling in on a day planned for the beach.

My favorite number has always been seventeen. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I was born on that date, or maybe because when I was a kid, my dad liked to play the Sinatra song, “When I was Seventeen.”

When my husband and I talked about starting a family, I had wanted our baby to be born on April 17th. Spring is the time for new beginnings, so, that’s what we tried to do.

I had it all figured out. At age 30, I’d have my first child in the month of April, the second when I was age 33 in the month  of June. One boy, one girl, didn’t matter which order.

Shh, listen, can you hear God laughing?

Not only did I miss having a child in April, but had trouble conceiving altogether. I came to realize that any date would suffice.

I did get pregnant once. I miscarried on April 17th.

Twenty years later, April 17th, 2014, my husband had a serious accident while at work.

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m not one of these people who can remain calm in an emergency. I need a plan, and if I have one laid out in the event of an emergency, I’m okay, otherwise, I panic. I can’t think quick enough to organize my thoughts and figure out what to do. My mind spins into a whipping funnel of wind with a mass of debris whirling around it. Even if the wind dies down, the debris is scattered everywhere. I don’t know where to begin to put it back together, or if it’s even possible to do so.

It’s true what they say, at least for me, that what you fear the most will come to pass. It’s the Universe’s way of getting me to face my fears. In doing so, I’ve learned that despite the hurricane, despite the panic that sets in, I can handle a crisis.

My husband has lessons to learn from the accident as well, but if he wanted to share them, he’d start his own blog. However, I can tell you that I’ve witnessed him learning to slow down. What other choice does he have?

Through this struggle, the bad days, the tears, the stress, the pain, we still feel lucky. His injury will take months to recover from, but it could’ve been something that he would never recover from.

We were in a comfortable routine and a happy marriage. We laughed a lot together, and joked like a comedy team anticipating the next punch line to bounce off the other. We often said how grateful we were to have made it through some tough marital issues when we were younger. Of course, there is no reason why any of this has to change because of the accident. We simply have some added daily challenges.

Here are the things I’m learning, and would like to share them with anyone else willing to listen. 1) Make time in between any challenges to be grateful for even the littlest of things. 2) Set at least five minutes a day aside (longer if possible) to silence thoughts and connect to the stillness within. 3) Trust in your own inner strength. 4) Laugh at least once a day.

Oh, and by the way, I still love the number 17, just not so much when it comes with the number 4 in front of it.

Have you ever faced an adversity that caused you to face your fears?

(P.S. On an unrelated note, today I must mention the five year anniversary of the loss of our first fur son, my very heart and soul, Piezon aka Bubba)