So, that’s my story.
A four year journey I never asked for or ever, EVER expected to be forced to embark on. But what do you do when you’re handed an unexpected life? You live it.
You take it, carry on, over time learn to embrace it, and eventually you conquer it! And along the way you learn to enjoy the journey–keep your eyes open and marvel at the many unexpected adventures that come your way as a part of it.
After all, “Life is just a journey.” (Princess Diana)
“That ends this strange eventful history…” (William Shakespeare)
I was in Colorado less than 48 hours. But I conquered all the major hurdles:
1. I drove the streets of Denver, Aurora and Centennial, Colorado (all the areas of my old stomping ground and life) and I felt great! I didn’t feel homesick, I didn’t feel like I didn’t belong there, I didn’t have an urge to cry…I just felt like I was in a place I knew very well and enjoyed. I felt welcome!
2. I drove to my former home. And I felt…nothing. I didn’t feel homesick, I didn’t feel loss, I didn’t have an urge to cry… I felt nothing but peace.
3. Although I didn’t get a chance to see a majority of the friends I would have loved to have seen, I got to see several people I love and have missed.
4. I even had the privilege of seeing and speaking with a few victims of my former husband. They could not have been kinder or more gracious to me. (There are some really good people in the world!)
5. I realized that I can, and want, to return for a visit again someday. (And I want to bring my children, too!)
And then, all too soon, it was off to the airport again and a quick flight back to Salt Lake City. I arrived home–everything looked the same yet everything was completely different. I went to work the next day–everything looked the same yet EVERYTHING was different.
I was different. I had conquered the last hurdle from my unexpected life. Consider me recovered! But I’ll refrain from adding “The End” to this story. Because there never is one to…the unexpected life.
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” (Winston Churchill)
Or maybe the secret to life is…simply facing your fears.
My unexpected life was replete with ALL of my lifelong fears and many more I’d never even dreamed of, not even in my worst nightmare, all combined into one fantastically devastating, horrific experience that included, all at the same time, betrayal, crime, a double life, negative publicity, divorce, single motherhood, poverty, loss of home, loss of pretty much everything of worldly value, unemployment, financial devastation and a few other things I shall refrain from detailing.
What do you do when you’re handed your nightmare on a platter of poverty and publicity?
Accept it. You can’t escape it, so deal with it.
Conquer it. Keep at it until you overcome the mountains in your path. (Work at it every single day for as long as it takes to find happiness and joy, to live, again.)
I think THAT is the secret.
“He who is not every day conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
“Sometimes I think my life would make a great TV movie. It even has the part where they say, ‘Stand by. We are experiencing temporary difficulties.’” (Robert Brault)
Life, especially the unexpected one, has its “difficulties.”
I once thought the secret to life had to be picking yourself up and carrying on despite challenges, making the most of what you’re blessed with (or handed, against your will) and choosing to be happy and to do the right thing despite disappointments.
Well, I’ve tried that. I’ve done that. And while it certainly makes for a happy and fulfilling life—and allows you to rebuild a life just as good or better than the one you lived before, I think, now, that maybe the secret to life is something else: endure to the end.
Because you’ve got to hang in there in the unexpected life while everything comes together. And after it all comes together, you’ve got to hang in there and endure during the new challenges life presents.
“Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer.” (Winston Churchill)
“I don’t, for the record, have a Tweety Bird fetish.” (Brian Lamb)
But I have enjoyed some special birds.
Once, when I lived in my Colorado neighborhood, an owl took up residence on our front porch. He stayed with us for about 3 weeks and kept a close eye on us–rotating his head all the way around to look at a us, never missing a thing! It was very unexpected. And very typical of life–unexpected.
But the creatures I had the most dealings with for the 16 years I lived in my home were two particular birds: a sparrow and a robin.
The sparrow took up residence every year in the wreath that hung on my front door. Kind homeowner that I was, every fall when she flew away for the winter, I removed the nest and cleaned the bird mess off my front door and secretly hoped she wouldn’t return. But every year she did. When she arrived, she immediately set to work laboring long and hard to build a little nest in the wreath. Then she’d lay her little eggs there. And then she had to endure trying to protect her eggs as our front door opened and closed, and people came and went, throughout the day every day. I’m sure she never expected to live amid such turmoil!
But I have to give her credit for not only enduring her circumstances, but for never giving up; for returning each year, year after year, to do the same thing. It inspired me that she always made it–she built her nest, raised her babies, and survived the winter season to return and do it again.
The unexpected life requires emulation of the sparrow. You don’t expect what you’re handed, you never plan to live amid turmoil, you can’t control much of what you experience, but you can endure. That’s what the sparrow did. And she taught me you can do it year after year, for however long it takes, until you triumph over your challenges.
The robin took up her real estate in the pear tree outside my dining room window. I could stand in my dining room and look out the window and down into her nest. I got to enjoy a bird’s eye view without ever disturbing my bird-friend! She slaved to build her nest; she laid her eggs in it–beautiful, tiny blue eggs; and then she sat on them through rain and shine, sleet and heat and snow. Many times, I watched her huddled in her nest, her wings wrapped around her for protection against the heavy, wet, thick, Colorado spring snow that pounded her little nest relentlessly. But she, too, never gave up despite the heavy burdens that landed on her. And she still managed to not only hatch her eggs and raise her baby birds, but she sang while she did it. Year after year.
When my unexpected life began, I remember feeling a lot like that robin: burdened, huddled, trying to survive the temporary misery amid heavy snow.
The unexpected life requires emulation of the robin, too. Endure, and by virtue of never giving up, eventually conquer the things that are heaped upon you. Hang in there, eventually spring will come. Your burdens will lift (or you’ll have become strengthened and able to bear them) if you don’t give up. And for goodness sake, sing while you do it! There’s a reason Snow White whistled while she worked!
It has been two years since my last interactions with the robin and the sparrow. And now I realize something else, probably the most important thing of all. Thank goodness for the unexpected life, despite its turmoil, trauma, challenges and burdens. Because it forces us out of our shells and out of our nest, we have to fly or fail; hatch or go bad.
Growth is always a choice. In most cases, so is triumph. I love those little birds and their eggs that reminded me of that.
“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird; it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are all like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.” (C.S. Lewis)
Thank goodness for the unexpected life that keeps things fresh, and that helps us hatch and grow beyond being just ordinary, decent eggs.
I’ve admired a few women in my life.
Every once in awhile, you come across someone who exemplifies everything you admire. You look at her with awe and hope that someday… you can become like her. That someday you’ll be as beautiful on the inside, and out, as she is.
The bummer comes in getting there.
In becoming like her.
In developing the beauty that comes from meeting life and conquering its challenges with grace, dignity and class. (At least, that’s my goal.)
Someday, I want to be a woman like that.
“Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is self-discipline and self-knowledge. It’s the sure footedness that comes with having proved you can meet life.” (Ann Landers)
And if I ever become such a woman, I’m going to have to thank my unexpected life for that, too.
For homework, my middle son had to select a story and prepare to tell it to his school class. A few students from each class are chosen to tell their story in front of judges, and the school’s winners get to participate in the Timpanogos Story Telling Festival. (If I understand the whole thing correctly. Last year was a blur, I still consider myself new to Utah, so I hope that’s accurate information.)
As I helped my son with his story, I couldn’t help but give him a few pointers on how to tell it. (Sometimes I just can’t hold the PR&Advertising-trained part of me back. One of the few things I can do is give a presentation!) He wasn’t buying much of what I suggested he do, I think he was too cool for most of it. So on the off chance his story ends with his 5th grade class, I have to pass it on here. Because it’s a true one. From the life of my great-grandfather, Jerome Bradley Henrie and his mother, my great-great grandmother, Amanda Bradley Henrie.
When I first heard it as a little girl, it inspired me. It helped me stand strong. And as a woman, when I needed courage during tough times, it helped me do what I needed to with my head held high. Especially when I entered my unexpected life.
Here’s the story as my son will share it with his class today:
“Jerome Henrie grew up in a dugout on the side of the temple hill in Manti, Utah, more than a century ago.
Winters were cold. Summers were hot, and the heat was especially challenging because rattlesnakes infested the cool, darkness of the family’s dugout to escape the heat of summer days–which made home life VERY interesting, not to mention just a little bit dangerous!
But rattlesnakes weren’t the only danger.
There were Indians!
One day Jerome’s mother Amanda, finished her week’s baking. She took the freshly baked loaves of bread from the fire and laid them on a table to cool. As she stood back to admire her work, a huge Indian brave barged into her home! He gestured for the bread.
Amanda gave him one loaf, but he wasn’t satisfied. The Indian again demanded bread.
All of it.
Amanda was a tiny woman. She was terrified of the tall, fierce Indian standing in her home, demanding all of her bread. But she knew if she gave him her bread, her children would have nothing to eat.
So she grabbed a poker from the fire and gestured her own invitation of departure! She chased that Indian out of her little dugout home and he never came back! It must have been quite a site to see a big brave running from a tiny pioneer woman! Yet Amanda’s courage to stand strong even in the face of what she feared, is an example to me.
Ovid said, ‘Happy is he who dares courageously to defend what he loves.’”
I’m not advocating we run around in the 21st century brandishing pokers, but I do believe we have to stand for what we believe is right (regardless of how we’re judged by others), we need to move forward even when we’re terrified and we need to see our challenge through to “the end” (without giving up) until we conquer it!
“The triumph cannot be had without the struggle.” (Wilma Rudolph)
Neither can the unexpected life.
