Take the Good with the Bad

Four years ago today my assumptions of how I thought my life would be were drastically changed.  It was like everything I had ever known about life was suddenly a lie.  Up until my 21st year, life had been easy for me.  I grew up with a mother, a father, and a half brother who was eight years older than me.  This age gap allowed my brother and I to practically grow up as only children, receiving virtually everything we ever asked for.  I graduated High School as an average student, and went to Grand Valley State University, and with absolutely no student loans to speak of, and only one crazy roommate to plague my good times, i was practically care free.  I went to class, I worked, I went home to see my family every few months, and things were good.  

Then in the summer of 2006 my dad called me to tell me he had a doctors appointment scheduled because he hadn't been feeling well.  Although I did think it was strange he was calling to tell me about such a mundane event, i ultimately put the phone call out of my head, and went on with my day, because bad things don't happen to people like my Dad, no way, no how!  Needless to say a few days later my Dad had cancer, and no matter how hard I tried to pretend like it was a bad dream, I ultimately knew weather he lived or died things would never be the same for any of us again.  The months went by, and he got sick, and he go better, and he had a bone marrow transplant, and he got sick, and then they said he was going to die, and then they said he was cured, and then finally in the first week of March, I got a call that said it was time to come to the hospital because he wasn't going to make it.  

So here I am 21 years old, and while all of my friends are sunning themselves on pretty little beaches on the Gulf Coast sipping Margaritas, and worrying about their tan lines, I sat in a hospital room for 3 days with my family waiting for that time to come.  Inevitably March 9th came, and late in the evening my father went, and we all left the University of Michigan hospital, hoping never to come back.  

I soon came to the realization that I could day dream and plan out how I wanted my life to be as long as I wanted, but nothing is guaranteed, and nothing I had always assumed my father would be at would ever happen how I wanted.  So many months later- or maybe longer, after I finally stopped feeling angry, and sorry for myself, I decided maybe something as terrible as losing your dog, your father, and your grandfather within two weeks happened to me, because God knew I could handle it, and learn from it.  So despite my misfortunes I always had the nagging feeling in the back of my mind that so many others have had worse things happening to me, there is no excuse for me to think I am more important than those other people.  And in this reasoning I knew that whatever I decided to do in life, I could no longer work towards the goal of simply making myself happy, I knew that whatever I did would have to impact someone else in a way that makes their lives better.  

Today I saw my brother wrote on his facebook, and in the message he said he is trying to live by "WWGD" (What Would George Do?)  And although I have never called it that before, I think I do the same thing.  Every day I wonder what my Dad would think and say about what I am doing with my life, but then I think if he were here then maybe my outlook on life would be entirely different, and none of what I am doing now would have happened.  

In the spring of 2009 I began to look at jobs through Americorps, and I found a job working with Habitat for Humanity in Seattle.  I applied, I had an interview, and I have to be honest the woman who interviewed me made it seem like I had the job, I was ready to go, and eager to get on with my life.  Then Juliet called me, and asked me if I wanted to go on a mission trip to this place called Haiti.  I hardly had a clue as to where Haiti was, so in an attempt to maker her happy, and not just flat out say no I didn't want to go, I told Juliet that if I didn't get the job in Seattle that I would go with her to Haiti, and left it at that.  Later that night I got an e-mail from the lady in Seattle saying I had NOT gotten the job.  At the time I was so disappointed that I did not get the job that I wanted- but silly me, I had forgotten my own lesson from years past.  And to be honest this goes out to whoever that woman was who rejected me- Thank You, your rejection was a blessing.