red dot little duck

The plan. Mom was supposed to come visit me in North Carolina. She was to meet my Durham family and we were going to celebrate our birthdays together, create some new memories. Less than a week before her trip over here she fell seven feet off a ladder, cracked her head open over a chair and got taken to the hospital where they found a tumor in her brain. Change of plans.

The one instant in which she fell created a ripple of possible outcomes. She could have died. Could have been paralyzed, or broken her limbs. The tumor could have been cancerous. She was lucky. We were lucky. Last Friday, my mom had brain surgery. Lucky it was benign. Lucky it wasn’t a millimeter to the right. Lucky she is now home, healing, resting. Still, nothing about it was ideal. Positioning, swelling… not ideal… brain surgery… not ideal.

Even though the fall was painful physically and emotionally, and created limiting factors which fostered frustration through lack of control… the fall led to discovery. Something was found that could have become much worse as she went about her daily life.

This is what happens. We make plans and those plans sometimes fail or change outside of our control. Accidents, traumas, heartaches — things we may not have had the foresight to avoid — these things have the ability to TAKE from us. Take self-confidence, take from the love we have for each other, the love we have for our lives… this life. I mean, look around out there. This world is fucked up. And how much of that is due to the need to control everything around us?

So, not every change of plans will lead to something terrible. Changes can shake things up, expose flaws, create an imbalance which forces us to seek stability. To search for answers, creativity, compassion, devotion, communication, love. Change teaches us to be malleable, to express gratitude for consciousness and can bring clarity around relationship. And as hard as it is… can lead us to an experience of relief in relinquishing control.