It’s Good Friday today, although I seriously doubt Jesus
would have called it that. Talk about a bad day. With Passover and Easter upon us, I thought I’d
share my own tale of the seven plagues. Or is it ten? I don’t know. I just know
that recently Troy and I seemed to have experienced a few of them.
DEATH: Evan said the other day, “Ever since Anita died,
everything has gone horribly wrong in our lives. It’s like she took all the
happy with her.” He’s right. I was so shaken by Anita’s death, I got sick on
the day she died, really sick. Lost my voice for a week, got bronchitis and
couldn’t shake it for over a month. And that was just the kickoff to a string
of other disasters. Like bugs…
BUGS: Recently Troy woke up covered head to toe in what
looked like bug bites. His arms and legs swelled up and were hot to the touch.
He went to urgent care, they gave him some meds but didn’t really know what was
wrong with him. Last week, Evan woke up the same way and we knew we had a
problem. We hired a company that brought a trained dog out to sniff for bed
bugs. We didn’t have bed bugs, but in moving and turning over all our furniture
we found out we had carpet beetles. I had no idea, as I had never seen one
(still haven’t - they are smaller than a grain of rice and hide in your carpet
and furniture). They don’t bite, but it turns out some people are highly
allergic to them. So that began days of moving furniture and having all carpets
and furniture steam cleaned and washing every thing in the house and bagging up
all the pillows, etc. Ugh.
FLOOD – Two days after the bugs, the house still torn apart,
I come home from yoga and Evan says, “Mom, don’t be upset. The whole house
flooded.” Upset? Why would I be upset? Second floor bathroom flooded into first
floor bathroom flooded into Troy’s recording studio and our basement. Spent
DAYS dealing with that. Days of sweat and filth and throwing away photos and
ruined Christmas decorations and trying to dry out an entire trunk full of my
soaked journals. Cleaning carpets. AGAIN.
We realized that in the 15 years we’ve owned this house we
have had six floods. Two caused by nature, three caused by toilets, and one by
a burst pipe in the ceiling. We have purchased three new toilets, including one
high-pressure flush toilet that was supposed to ensure that we never had
another toilet flood, but THAT toilet spontaneously exploded, porcelain shards flying everywhere, and then flooded
the bathroom. Yes, we had an exploding toilet (and are now part of a class
action lawsuit against the manufacturer).
BLOOD: Two days after the flood, Troy was on the phone
dealing with the IRS (who, on the day Evan was covered in hives, sent us
certified letters telling us they decided we owe them more money for 2012) when
Troy tripped over something and cut his leg wide open on a piece of broken
glass. Blood everywhere. We were in the ER for four hours, three of those
waiting to be seen, and one of them stitching his leg back together. 16
stitches. And while we were in the ER, the building inspector emailed us,
wanting to know what we plan to do about our building code violations on our
deck. SERIOUSLY?
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| Hail covering California beaches- cause that's "normal." |
HAIL: Yep, we had that this month too. Hello, global
warming. No one got hurt though.
And here’s a plague we hope we’re done with:
FIRE: Yep. We had that one big time. We thought we’d “burned
through that karma.” Since then, we’ve been evacuated from this house twice
during fire season, wildfires burning to the edge of our property. Twice. So I wrote this book Fire Season, which will start shipping in a matter of
days, and I am praying this exorcises that chapter of our life. And I’m a nervous
wreck.
...AND THE REST: I don’t really know what the rest of the plagues are but
we’ve decided we’re giving them up for Lent.
So what is the moral of the story here? Are we unlucky?
Cursed? Plagued?
I think it’s this. When awful things happen to us, we can
choose to shut down and become bitter, or we can rise up again (like Jesus, or
Obi Wan Kenobi, whichever works for you). Every one of us has lessons to learn,
a cross to bear (sorry, Jesus) so to speak. Faith, courage, compassion…those
are muscles that must be worked, or else we become, I don’t know… spiritually
flabby. Those painful lessons are what grow our courage, empathy and
compassion. Working as a gun violence prevention advocate, I have met and become
good friends with many wonderful people who are survivors of gun violence or
have lost children to gun violence. They have greater compassion and strength
than anyone I know. In the midst of unimaginable loss, they rose up, and became
stronger and kinder and more resilient than they ever knew they could. They
give hope and encouragement to people like me who are dealing with silly little
things like floods and bugs. They give me strength.
In turn, I share with you our crazy little tale of plagues,
and I share in my book how we lost everything, including hope, and how there is
always a way to turn ruin into redemption, and I think that’s the point of this
thing called life.
Recently Evan asked me about that. “What’s the point of
life, Mom?” I told him it was to
learn and grow. Distressed, he said, “That’s the WHOLE POINT of life?! That
sucks!”
Yeah, I told him, sometimes it sucks, and sometimes it’s a
grind and sometimes its so gorgeous it could break your heart wide open. But
we’re lucky to have it. All of it.
Today I’m focusing on gratitude and looking
forward to Easter Sunday, when I will gather with my family and be happy, count
my blessings, my thoughts far away from any plagues.
Wishing you all a happy Easter, Passover, spring …and on
Star Wars day, May the 4th
be with you.
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| Is it just me, or does anyone else think a solid chocolate "instrument of torture" is a little weird? |
