One Step at a Time

           

We had an unusual Thanksgiving holiday this year.  My mother came out to visit on the Monday before the holiday, and within 24 hours she’d fainted!  Although a couple of months ago she’d had three stints put in, we assumed that at 81, she might just be exhausted from the flight from California.  (She’d been told that she was fit to travel.)  When she fainted again the next day, we took her to the emergency room.

 

            You can well imagine all the things running through my head:  was she having a heart attack?  Should I tell our family and friends we would need to cancel Thanksgiving dinner, and how long should we wait to make that decision?  How serious was her condition?  I could easily have become overwhelmed by fear and anxiety, but I relied on my practice and decided to take it all one step at a time, in the midst of my mother’s concerns, my family’s fears and my own anxiety.  Instead of denying what I was experiencing, I simply acknowledged my fear, confusion, distress, and took the next step.

 

            I drove us to the emergency room, about a 45 minute drive from our home.  By the time the ER folks ran tests on my mother, they decided that without her California records to compare to, she looked like she was in the middle of a heart attack!  Mom, obviously frightened and confused, became belligerent at the idea of having to wear a hospital gown, having blood drawn (since technicians often have difficulty with her veins), and she denied that anything serious could be going on.  I knew that my sister had dealt with Mom’s fears when mom had to deal with earlier health issues, so I called my sister in California to get her input.  You can only imagine my mother talking with my sister on my cell phone with her right hand, while the nurse drew blood without a hitch (thank goodness!) from her left arm.  Through all of this, I noticed the cacophony of my own emotions, knew the importance of remaining calm for the sake of everyone, and just waited for the next step to be taken.

 

            The staff moved my mother to another facility of the hospital that specialized in heart problems, took an angiogram that evening, and kept mom overnight; the next morning the surgeons decided she had to have heart surgery!  I immediately called my sister, who tried to reach my mother’s cardiologist in California, and he contacted the doctors in Florida and assured them my mother’s heart rate was normally low, the odd electrocardiogram results were actually within the normal range for my mother, and that she was fine.  He speculated that she might be fainting because of exhaustion and dehydration from the long flight.  With great relief, I then had to facilitate my mom’s release from the hospital, and I was able to bring mom home in time for Thanksgiving dinner.  My wonderful husband, for the first time on his own, had cooked turkey, stuffing, fresh cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, beans and carrots, and pumpkin pies!  Family and friends were in our home to welcome and comfort us.

 

            It would be easy to dwell on how all of this could have happened differently, even more effectively:  if I’d thought about hydration after a long flight; if we’d contacted my mother’s cardiologist earlier; if the Florida doctors hadn’t rushed to the plan of surgery; and so on.   Yet in many ways, these events happened just as they were supposed to happen, in quite a natural unfolding.  We all did the best we could, and the best included my lack of imagination regarding my mother’s condition, my mother’s belligerence, and the doctors’ decision about surgery.  Even my husband stepped up to the plate, working with what was in front of him:  starting Wednesday afternoon, he only asked where the recipes were, where ingredients were stashed, and as events unfolded and I was unavailable, he prepared each dish.  And most importantly, mom was fine.

 

            Life calls us to meet each moment as it unfolds, however it unfolds.  Sometimes our reactions are resistant, confused, fearful and unproductive, in our own estimation, when the unexpected happens.  But from a spiritual perspective, when we meet life as it greets us, fully present and authentically, all outcomes are just fine, just as they are