I had a guy come to my desk at work the other day. He was inquiring about some sunglasses that he had lost months ago. He wanted to know if we still had them.
He kept telling me that these were no ordinary sunglasses. They were $400 RayBan sunglasses. I remembered him. This was not the first time he had checked to see if someone had turned them in. He said he was checking again because “miracles happen”.
Unfortunately, we did not have them. He mused about how life is filled with miracles and tragedies. This made me wonder if he considered losing his expensive sunglasses as a tragedy. That turned me off a bit, as there are people with much worse things happening in their lives.
Then, he asked me, if I had had miracles and tragedies in my life. I couldn’t think of any in my own life off the top of my head. And maybe because of my previous thought about his sunglasses, I did share that my mom’s life was filled with both.
“What is one miracle that she had?” he asked me.
This was getting personal now, but I couldn’t resist. So I explained how in 2006 the doctors told her that she had kidney cancer that had metathesized into her lungs. The doctor gave her 2 months to live. She had her left kidney removed, although the surgeon implied she was setting herself up for a long recovery for no reason. Then her cancer completely disappeared. She is still here today, 8 years later.
“Wow! So what was a tragedy?” he replied.
I totally had him hooked now. It was time to pull out my favorite shocking family revelation. I can’t change it, so might as well enjoy it, right?
I told him that would probably be when she was pregnant with me and my dad dropped over from a heart attack before I was born.
Ya, the customer was pretty impressed with those. He probably still didn’t forget about his sunglasses, but I had unloaded a lot on him to think about. If he was better looking and I was single, this could be the beginning of a romantic Hollywood movie.
I still can’t really say what the miracles and tragedies of my life will be yet.
My son having successful surgery to fix his UPJ obstruction I would consider a miracle. But that is his, and not mine.
What are the miracles and tragedies in your life?
I'm not stalking you. 
I love this post! Then again… I bet you knew I would. 😉 My greatest miracles would be my still unexplained recovery from terminal kidney disease and my son who “stuck” when all the medical indications were that he was “just an empty egg.” My greatest tragedies would probably be the 2 babies that I lost before him. I still think of them almost every day and my heart still breaks a little. I wonder often about the little people they would be now – preschoolers with their own quirks and personalities, learning to talk and sing and use the potty. I wish I could have know them but, somehow, that tragedy makes me that much more thankful for my miracle.
But there is no way you could have known all 3 of them, as they would not have had 9 months to cook in between. You birthed the one you were meant to have all those experiences with.