Tragic and Beautiful, Both
It All Depends On How We Look At Things
We can usually cast the same exact experience in either a positive or negative light. We have the ability to choose what we think about as well as how we think about something.
As I watched an old home video from one of, if not the best, year of my life, I started to get a little sad. It was the first year of my oldest son’s life. I was 34 years old, slim, fit, young looking and healthy. My husband was in some segments of the video. He also looked young, fit and happy. We had waited eleven long years for that baby to arrive. I lost three pregnancies during that time.
We were over the moon happy to have that baby. There was footage of me dancing while I carried him. I spent a lot of time on the floor playing with him. I splashed in kiddie pools on the deck with him. Our golden retriever was in every scene, wagging his tail. We were in our first real home for most of the scenes. There wasn’t much that was unusual about footage of a baby’s first year. We had first steps, first haircut, and first vacation at the beach. The part that looked a bit sad was it was the last year that I had full use of both arms and legs.
I became pregnant with baby number two toward the end of the video when my first child was 15 months old. Eight months later, I suffered a massive stroke. There was continued video footage of me walking about normally during the pregnancy until the sixth month when I was hospitalized until I gave birth.
My initial reaction to seeing this video was feeling the tragedy of it all. I was struck down in the prime of life as a young mother.
Yet, in point of fact, the movie showed an absolutely beautiful time in my life. I took time to notice how fortunate I had been. I had drawn lucky numbers in the genetic lottery as far as my looks. I had a young, handsome husband who loved me and was a good provider. I was able to enjoy my baby’s magnificent first year of life as a stay- at- home mother.
Rather than focus on the tragedy of becoming disabled before my second son was born, I thought about how lucky I had been to have had those blessings in my life at all. The movie was a beautiful story with a tragic ending.
Thank you for reading:)
