I came to work today to find an email from the mother of one of Paulo's classmates. She had forwarded an email from another classmate's family. Come to find out that a healthy, vibrant, mother who I've spoken to many times, who has had my son over for a play date with her son, she suffered not one but two strokes last month. Wow. It really stunned me. This is not something that I think about happening to my peer group.
A stroke? That doesn't happen to my peer group. Of course I know it does. It happens to all age brackets. Strokes are not picky, they are not age specific. They happen. They sneak up on a person and change their life in the blink of an eye.
Fortunately this woman's older children were there and noticed something was wrong with Mom-how terrifying for them! They called 911 right away and she was whisked to OHSU which has a world renowned brain center. She's been in a rehab facility for a few weeks and is due to come home soon-sooner than expected I might add. She's made progress but there's no way to know how this will affect her in the long run.
In the blink of an eye a family is forever altered. They're a wonderful family. A strong family. She's a strong woman. They have a lot of positives going for them, but this will still change their family. And it's all so unexpected.
We plan for so much in life but the big stuff, the big life altering events, we cannot plan for those. We just have to be prepared to roll with the punches, and that to me is scary. I like to be in control. But there's only so much I can control. I can stay healthy, I can eat right, exercise and watch my sodium intake but another driver can miss a stop sign, and forever change my family. There is only so much I can control.
Knowing this happened to one of my son's classmate's Mom, one of my peer group, shakes me up. I cannot imagine how scared that little dude must be to see his Mom like that. How hard it must be for all of them. She's strong though. I have faith that she will recover, but it will take time. In the meantime it makes me want to kiss my babies more. It reminds me not to sweat the small stuff-cause this is huge, this is really huge stuff they're dealing with. I'm also reminded that, while I'm not in control of the world, I'm not in control of when or how I die, I am in control of a lot and I need to let that empower me, to let that be my focus, to guide me and encourage me. And I need to go kiss my babies.
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