I've been going through some old blog posts looking for some information that I knew was in one of them. Spent the better part of an hour looking for it but to no avail. Instead, I found what I was REALLY meant to see~a reminder of something I had written on the 15th day of November 2011. It was a blog post referred to as "Life's Mysteries" and as I reread it, I realized just how strange life can sometimes turn out to be and in my case it has turned out for the very best.
By the time that post was written, "Peggy's Bucket List Journey" was only 6 months old. Much had happened to me by that time but much more was meant to come in the future. The reason that I wrote it in the first place was because I struck by all the strange things that had happened to me since May of that year, 2011. Things that were mysterious in nature and seemingly unable to be solved. It all started in early June that year when I received this unusual letter in the mail from the local YMCA. It was an enrollment form to begin taking swimming lessons for the first time since 1965, with a cryptic note at the top of it that read, "Bucket list item #2~You can do it!" I never was able to determine which person I had known would have been so inclined to encourage me, a "water phobic" to get into the water once again. My dear friend Cleta Ellington knows, but she 'aint saying and believe you me, I've tried a thousand times to get it out of her. So if you are the person who did that for me anonymously, then I want you to know that the secret was always safe with Cleta. Her lips are sealed. Then there's the mystery of the beautiful lighthouse sign that was left on my porch one day when someone figured out how much I loved lighthouses and that I was going to Maine in the summer to see one for the first time. I loved it so much and when I would look at it, I was reminded of a very fun journey that would lie ahead of me when school was out. It shall always be in the Peggy Miller "over my dead body" pile and I will cherish it for the rest of my days.
And of course, that year of 2011 was the year of "old lefty" and one of the greatest mysteries of my life was the question of who the person was who, upon their death, left me the gift of their bone material. When I wrote the November blog post, I had no idea who had died and subsequently donated it to me. I had in my mind that it was someone who had something to do with the name Eleanore but that's all I thought I would know of them. 3 weeks after the blog post I received a wonderful message from the folks back east at the musculoskeletal tissue bank. It was they who told me what little information I was able to find out about my donor. What a blessing it was to learn that a 45-year old Missouri man had given the gift of his body's long bones in order that people like me would have a second chance in this life. In my particular case, my arm was so badly messed up that the only hope was to use someone else's bone tissue. I thank God for him every day and there's not a day that goes by that I'm not reminded of it. All I have to do is look at "old lefty" and I know what a gift it was to receive.
You know friends, are you like me? Have you noticed how certain things, when you very least expect them, happen to us? Sometimes they are bad, I'll admit that, but you know 5 times as many good things have happened to me than bad things. People have come in and out of my life as if they were entering a revolving door...some of them have stayed and others stayed for just a while. I'm positive that there are others just waiting to cross paths with me. I give thanks, right now, for all of the people who have been a part of my life and for what they have done for me, I will always be beholden to them.
I'm going to reprint that November column here below....sometimes it's just nice to go back and remember where you have been and how far you have come along in this life. I am moving forward into whatever my future shall turn out to be, still way more determined than I would ever be afraid. Have a good evening friends, one and all. You are loved!
The blog post below, "Life's Mysteries" from November of 2011....
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
life's mysteries
Friends, this post has nothing to do with "bucket lists" but perhaps everything to do with "I wonder why?" lists. And my young friends who are reading this, maybe you haven't lived through enough experiences yet to even understand where this comes from....but you will, sooner or later. Mark my words, you will.
Do you ever have those times in life when you wonder why certain things happen the way they do? How one thing can set in place a series of things that sooner or later make their way to you? It might take weeks or even months before you realize its full impact but once you see it happen, you can't help but think in amazement at it all.
One of my favorite phrases to quote as I have written this blog is, "It's all just a part of the plan." And most of the time I believe that without questioning it and accept it as part of life's journey. But other times I find it harder to understand and quite often find myself trying to figure out "why" some things happen the way that they do. And guess what? That approach doesn't work out too good for me.
In fact, today as I was trying to figure out "life's mysteries", I received another "whack on the head" from God above. And the message I got was this~"Peggy, stop trying to figure everything out. Just trust Me that I know what I'm doing." Any of you ever received that message from Him? I get it all the time~and surely glad that God doesn't mind repeating Himself, over and over and over again because I seem to have a hard time giving that one up.
My life has been full of blessings and many of them have been totally unexpected ones. Things that I never figured would happen to me seem to occur without any type of warning. Take "Eleanor", my donor's bone segment, for example. Because I don't know for sure who it was that gave the bone to me I can only speculate. But this I do know, perhaps as long ago as 2009, someone lost their life. They could have been a man or a woman, a young boy or girl. Chances are likely that whoever it was, they were healthy and died accidentally or from some other form of trauma. Whoever that person was, either they or their family members decided that when they died, they didn't want their life to really end without making one last difference in the world. They made the decision to donate healthy parts of their body to someone who might need it.
Fast forward 2 years, August 4th, 2011. A normally very careful bicycle rider (that'd be me) was riding home following a very wonderful morning ride. Going way too fast, wearing no helmet and trying to jump a curb with her bike was a recipe for disaster. In a split second of time, after crushing many of the bones in the wrist and arm, that rider desperately needed help. That help came in the form of a donor's bone just a few days later. The right people were in the right place at the right time for everything to come together. Medical professionals knew what to do to retrieve the bone sample from my donor's body~medical professionals in Wichita, Kansas knew what to do to implant it into mine. A series of events, very bittersweet, came together~~one life was given and another one was saved.
I have been privileged to meet so many people in this life~many of whom I would have never dreamt to meet one day. Our friendships have been forged through some of the strangest of circumstances, some of the most unusual series of events. Oh man, how one thing leads to another and another and another....until finally it finds you.
So, for life's mysteries, I still give thanks. I may never know why some things have happened to me or why certain people came into my life at a specific point in time. One thing I do know is this~I don't really have to know everything but I do have to trust that it was for the good. May all of you reading this be able to accept the mysteries that life gives to you. Don't try to figure them all out friends~sometimes it's better to not know. Have a good evening everyone!
Do you ever have those times in life when you wonder why certain things happen the way they do? How one thing can set in place a series of things that sooner or later make their way to you? It might take weeks or even months before you realize its full impact but once you see it happen, you can't help but think in amazement at it all.
One of my favorite phrases to quote as I have written this blog is, "It's all just a part of the plan." And most of the time I believe that without questioning it and accept it as part of life's journey. But other times I find it harder to understand and quite often find myself trying to figure out "why" some things happen the way that they do. And guess what? That approach doesn't work out too good for me.
In fact, today as I was trying to figure out "life's mysteries", I received another "whack on the head" from God above. And the message I got was this~"Peggy, stop trying to figure everything out. Just trust Me that I know what I'm doing." Any of you ever received that message from Him? I get it all the time~and surely glad that God doesn't mind repeating Himself, over and over and over again because I seem to have a hard time giving that one up.
My life has been full of blessings and many of them have been totally unexpected ones. Things that I never figured would happen to me seem to occur without any type of warning. Take "Eleanor", my donor's bone segment, for example. Because I don't know for sure who it was that gave the bone to me I can only speculate. But this I do know, perhaps as long ago as 2009, someone lost their life. They could have been a man or a woman, a young boy or girl. Chances are likely that whoever it was, they were healthy and died accidentally or from some other form of trauma. Whoever that person was, either they or their family members decided that when they died, they didn't want their life to really end without making one last difference in the world. They made the decision to donate healthy parts of their body to someone who might need it.
Fast forward 2 years, August 4th, 2011. A normally very careful bicycle rider (that'd be me) was riding home following a very wonderful morning ride. Going way too fast, wearing no helmet and trying to jump a curb with her bike was a recipe for disaster. In a split second of time, after crushing many of the bones in the wrist and arm, that rider desperately needed help. That help came in the form of a donor's bone just a few days later. The right people were in the right place at the right time for everything to come together. Medical professionals knew what to do to retrieve the bone sample from my donor's body~medical professionals in Wichita, Kansas knew what to do to implant it into mine. A series of events, very bittersweet, came together~~one life was given and another one was saved.
I have been privileged to meet so many people in this life~many of whom I would have never dreamt to meet one day. Our friendships have been forged through some of the strangest of circumstances, some of the most unusual series of events. Oh man, how one thing leads to another and another and another....until finally it finds you.
So, for life's mysteries, I still give thanks. I may never know why some things have happened to me or why certain people came into my life at a specific point in time. One thing I do know is this~I don't really have to know everything but I do have to trust that it was for the good. May all of you reading this be able to accept the mysteries that life gives to you. Don't try to figure them all out friends~sometimes it's better to not know. Have a good evening everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment