I watched the super bowl and rooted for the Saints. If you're a Colts fan then I am sorry for your loss. I rooted for N.O. because it was only a few years ago that the city had become a war zone and this was the first really big thing to happen for them since. Being hit by two hurricanes myself, as a northerner, no less, I have a great appreciation for how long it takes to recover and how much I wanted them to have a win. Sometimes, just having a single win in life can turn an entire life around.
Of coarse, I couldn't stop just at thinking how this could help New Orleans to feel better as a city and help them back on their feet. I thought about all the "wins" I have had that made me turn a different corner and pull myself up by my boot straps one more time. It has always been the simplest of things that has turned my cheek or head a different direction to start the momentum going in the right direction again. I believe in signs, so it has been seemingly insignificant things that have deeper meaning for me. This has taught me to see bad times, not as failures, but lessons. Just like high school, some lessons have a steep price to them and pay day comes faster than I would like. When I have to "pay up" it always seems to come so quickly and when I am waiting to be paid, it takes forever. I wish Einstein would have spent a little time on that equation.
I am in the middle of my kid's lessons, as well as my own. As much as I would like to prevent any pain from coming to them, I realize that the greater good is the lesson left behind. Suffering really does build character. It is the stuff of legends. It is what determines who stays and who goes. All the great stories have suffering, pain or anguish attached to them, in some way or an other. I, personally, have seen my fair share of all of the above, but I don't feel as if my life has been so hard that I couldn't find the lesson and the joy after the clouds parted. I am lucky to have that. My innately optimistic character has allowed for me to know, really know that the sun will rise another day and my second chance to do better is only a sleep cycle away. I can't begin to express how fortunate I feel, not to panic at the first sign of trouble because of my life's experience and the lessons I learned, keeping me calm.
Before watching the super bowl, I was watching the show "Hoarders" about a woman who had lost a child and couldn't let go of her stuff. I felt her pain all the way to my bones. I lost two children. I am not found of the verb "lost" because I didn't misplace them in a grocery store, they died. I watched the show and how difficult it was for her to part with anything attached to her child. With all that suffering, what could possibly be the bright side, I wondered to myself? I thought about how I felt when my children died. I thought about the feelings of failure I had in protecting my babies enough, while they were in my body. I cried by myself during that time. I didn't talk about it much, because I didn't know what to say and condolences were doing nothing to help me, or so I thought. My lessons in that time were actually very simple in nature and complex in comprehension. People die. As a hospice nurse, I knew this on a medical level, but personally, found it impossible to deal with. But it is the way of it. People do die, and there is no secret formula to prevent death to children, adults or elderly. My other lesson was, that I didn't have to have all the answers to why they died or how they died or even if there was fault to assign. I didn't need to know any of it. The poor woman on the show, was stuck, like a skipping record. I, too might have become stuck if it were not for the fact that some pretty scary stuff cropped up after the miscarriages. My need to deal with other tragedies kept me from becoming the skipping record. Triage, kept me going, allowing me to move steps forward, away from the pain of the loss of my children. My suffering in other areas of my life, may have very well saved me from wasting away in the abyss. I don't believe my suffering has ever been in vain. My occasional wins allowed me to take a moment feel happy, blessed, fortunate, loved, and accomplished. Once the woman leaves her stuff behind and moves one or two steps forward, she will find her new win can carry her a long way.
New Orleans needed a win, for the team, the city and the people who have been re-building, one house, one restaurant, one school at a time. The now, have back bones made of steel and an understanding of true brotherhood. This was one super bowl I was thrilled to watch. As a terminal Cleveland Browns fan, maybe I needed to feel their win as well.
