I Choose to be Carried

I used to worry, fester, fume and ruminate over every little thing. Just ask my mom, my husband, and my friends.

Then life happened, and it just kept happening. My parents and parents-in-law both divorced – one shortly after my marriage and the other as we were having our first child. My father died way too early after a difficult struggle with brain cancer. Other friends and family died, divorced, or lost children. My daughter was born with serious medical complications and ongoing disabilities.

When I was younger, I went up and down with life. Eventually (well, recently) I learned that life could have its ups and downs, but I didn’t have to go up and down with it.

I used to worry, ponder, contemplate, and come up with every awful possibility. The theory was that if I worried and planned, I could be prepared for anything that happened. But you know what? Most often, the final outcome wasn’t anything like what I’d imagined and planned. So I had to wing it anyway. I’d spend all that time worrying and planning for nothing. I always got through somehow despite the inaccurate and useless plan derived from my worry.

Eventually, I learned to relax and live with the faith that I would get to tomorrow somehow. The “somehow” was most often something I couldn’t have planned or made happen. It was something that came about when I relaxed, let things roll, and kept my mind open to the miracles around me.

Why borrow tomorrow's worries? I can’t predict the problems of tomorrow. Why worry as if I can? Instead, I let my body and mind relax in what I know today. And I do mean what I KNOW – not what I think might happen or might be. What I KNOW are only those things that are CERTAIN AT THE MOMENT.

Whatever the certainty is, worrying over it and pondering over it won't change it, won't make it easier, and won't make it go away. I can’t worry away illness. I can’t worry away a bad relationship. I can’t worry my way to success. So settling into the certainty of right now, letting it all be, and moving through it one day at a time seems to work best. I recognize what IS, acknowledge the certainty that I am exactly where I need to be, and accept that things are just as they need to be. I keep my spirits up knowing that I will get through one way or another – even if I can’t imagine or anticipate how that will happen.

Positive thinking and good spirits carry us through. Worried minds drag us down. Our goal is to get through our days, our situations, our lives. We will get through them one way or another. Tomorrow will come. Either our good spirits will carry us through or our worries will drag us through. Hmmm... do you want to be carried or dragged??

Hoping for Trust and Gratitude

To outsiders, the lives of children with disabilities can look very bleak for the children and their families. People wonder how we can cope with such dreary circumstances. Frankly, there are days when we wonder how we will cope.

Recently, a friend came upon such a day. She’s known since birth that her nearly 2-year-old daughter is profoundly deaf. But the other day, final MRI results revealed that she has no auditory nerves -- crushing any hopes of a cochlear implant or other kind of hearing assistance. My friend felt sideswiped by grief as she suddenly realized how tightly she’d been holding on to the hope of some intervention to bring her daughter sound.

Thus began a profound conversation about hope and grief, expectations and trust. I used to think that hope would get us through tough times. But now I think hope may be a dangerous place to hang your hat.

Consider my friend’s daughter. Her hearing is the same as it’s always been. The only thing that changed is her parents’ awareness of what that is. Each time we get bad news about our children’s condition, nothing has really changed – just our knowledge of it. Our knowing or not knowing usually will not stop what is to be. The grief is not about a new condition or situation; it is about our lost hopes.

When hopes are really expectations of how things should and will be, we are setting ourselves up for grief when those expectations are not met. We have no control over how things will be. The future will unfold as it is meant to – regardless of our “shoulds”, expectations, and hopes.

So what do we do with our hope? We use hope as a compass to direct our path and give substance to our vision. But we temper precarious hope with gratitude and trust. Trust that whatever comes will be just as it must be. Trust that we will endure any trial that comes our way. Trust that for everything that appears bad, there is goodness on the underside. Gratitude for that good -- for the new understandings and insights that can be found under emivery obstacle and tragedy in our path. Gratitude for the wonderful gift that is our child.

When we find ourselves weary and stooped under the weight of our worries, when our instinct is to hold tightly to hope with eyes clenched shut and a white-knuckled grip, our despair can be lifted with a combination of trust and gratitude. Open your eyes, soften your grip, trust, allow, and be thankful for what is.