Fate...Destiny...and Free Will

Fate…Destiny…and Free Will

Do WE control anything? Really? I don’t think so…

 If I had chosen to stay home on Tuesday, March 17, 1998, and packed up his crap as my original mind led me, would I not be cripple? Or would the accident have happened the next day? Was it the police’s fault? Had they gone around me, would it have been him or both of us? Was it the weather? Did I do something to deserve this? Why? Will I get better?

Those questions and many others plagued my memories for months… until I realized they didn’t matter now!

This was my new reality.

Suppose it was my destiny or fate. I’m here. I survived an accident many people died from. A rollover situation that crushed the roof of the car I was driving. I used to wonder if I could have done something different. Did I make the best decision during the whole process? Other than confronting the problem head-on…I mean!

When I think of fate, I usually wish someone would get their just-deserved treatment—a bully who terrified every female in Mrs. Brown’s third-grade class to be brought to tears finally or attention to be paid to a true hero. You often hear stories of a person rescuing children from a burning home or alerting the sleeping family. To find out… The next day that the heroine was homeless because she lost everything when cancer ate through her finances and ravished her husband. It brings a smile to my face and heart to realize the go-fund-me established to help her went viral and grew to over $2 million. Givers don’t complain or ask for the things they need.

Wait, understand me… destined to happen; many things may delay things, but I know that one event that is our destiny will eventually occur—death will come for you, me, and all of us at the most inopportune time. Fate is different and could be positive negative, or altered. The individual can influence the future as quickly as deciding to sleep in. 

Free will, on the other hand, is different and controllable. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I knew my life was forever changed when I was tumbling on US 250 that St. Patrick’s Day. For months I wondered what I could have done differently, if anything.

Eventually, I realized that God saved me from myself that night. Many people have asked me to explain why for years…

Well, it’s because, for the longest time, I didn’t know that airplane saying: “Put on your oxygen mask first.” I was so in love with his family that I took on a” fixer role.” There is no helping someone who does drugs. They have to decide if they want to get help. Not realizing I needed help, I met him on the downside of a breakup and my mother’s death. His mother treated me like many other mothers had, like I was the daughter they didn’t have. 

Hurting from the adverse treatment of a distant cousin’s comment the day we laid my mother to rest, I was still a bundle of raw nerves six months later. Anyone with a positive word or who could make me smile could lead me around like a puppy. I was happy if he wanted to spend some time with my children. He loved to fish, and I was a single mom who didn’t know how to heal myself or my kids or how to feel.

Sitting on a riverbank, watching a smile bloom across my son’s face, when they caught even a minnow. The sheer joy of seeing their excitement when they landed something citation or dinner worthy. Healing and laughs came out of learning how to bait my hook. Who knew purchasing fishing reels for the family members for Mother’s Day would make me happy in 95?

After almost three years of settling and hoping for change, God had to intervene. I used to blame the guy for how things happened that night, but I chose to go to bingo to think. Ironically everyone permitted me to go that night without the usual protest. Despite my reservation, I didn't return home while waiting for the ATM line to clear. That was twenty-five years ago.

Patti Labelle’s book Don’t Block Your Blessing spoke volumes in the title. TV host Steve Harvey of The Steve Harvey Show used to say: “Everyone who comes with you can’t always go with you.”  

It took me way too long to understand what both comments meant…

Here I am going on as you understand…

When the accident first happened, I saw it as a curse. I couldn’t see the blessing I had received from above. I could not see into the future. All my life went up in smoke with the luck of the Irish.

I now know I had been given the life God groomed me to lead. He slowed me down enough to be an effective parent. I feared I would not be able to get all the boys would need, but I have never had to want for anything. I have never had to say I can’t get that for you about anything they needed. The wants may have waited until Christmas, Easter, or their birthday—no more three-job juggling. I can gladly say that my life has changed from hectic, frustrating to calm and structured.

People from church told me for seventeen years that I should write a book about my life. If I had a dollar for each time I heard that, and I said I should, I would be well off. I procrastinated until yet another health crisis threatened my life in 2016. I started having respiratory problems on top of the usual UTI issues that would hospitalize me frequently.

Luckily, YES, lucky the last time I suffered an attack of this kind, I was already in the hospital. I was almost dead from sepsis when my medical team realized I needed an immediate thyroidectomy to save my life. That was April 25, 2016, at 9:00 p.m. I was later told.

They assembled a surgical team for first thing the next day, but I refused to have the surgery as I was told. It was one of my many “the light is on, but no one is home moments.” Knowing how crucial the surgery was to my survival, my primary physician was dispatched to get me to agree to have the procedure. Somehow my refusal of surgery saved my life because they discovered the oxygen system in that O.R. wasn’t functioning. The person who moved up to that time slot wasn’t as fortunate.

I believed I had a guardian angel that morning after hearing the whole story because, on April 26^th,1995, my mother departed this worldly struggle. I couldn’t remember that or anything else on that day twenty-one years later.

There’s nothing crazier than waking up in an unfamiliar place with restraints on your wrists and tubes in your arms, up your nose, down your throat, and your caregiver sitting up from a perch under the window and saying, “Welcome back.”

(Looking around and trying to move my arms)

Her subsequent comments were details of the last month:

1)       You’ve been asleep since your surgery

2)       Don’t, you have been restrained because you’ve been doing that; STOP; It’s your feeding and medicine tube

3)       Don’t cry; you’re alive. Can you understand what I am saying?

(Shaking head) YES

Can you speak?

(Gurgling and coughing), (Tears flowing), (Gasping for a breath)   Help!

I called the nurses already! Calm down. I’ll get someone!

{running out the door} {Screaming from the hallway}

She’s awake and needs suctioning ASAP. She’s got a mucus plug and can’t breathe! HURRY Please!

So, that was seven years ago…

My surgery was on the 27^th, and I died twice on the table. Twice the team advised my family to say their goodbyes. Still, my doctor, family, and caregiver continued to honor my wishes, never agreeing to give up on my will to survive. I remained in a coma for a month. I was on a ventilator, two strong antibiotics, and tube feedings. I needed suctioning every couple of hours and being turned. Even though I was unconscious, I tried to pull out the tubes so I was restrained.

That was the whole story…

After hearing about how fortunate I was to be alive from everyone who knew me, I knew I needed to quit talking about writing a book and telling the story. I decided that I’d wasted enough time. I began as soon as I was discharged from Rehab. I rediscovered my passion for writing. To date, I have written four books and self-published three already. I’m currently working on my next two!