I’m grateful for this life lesson but not for how I learned it.
A friend recently wrote a prompt on Facebook asking people to share what life lesson they are grateful for.
“Oof, that’s a biggie” I replied. I always have to answer this one the same way. The lesson is a simple concept that is not easy to live by and which was learned under the most difficult circumstances of my life to date.
August 16, 2004 was a gorgeous sunny day. It was the kind of day that demands you drive with your windows down and your music up. It was such a beautiful day, in fact, that when I hit stand still traffic on my way home to a planning meeting for my 5-year high school reunion, I didn’t even mind. More music and me time.
My mood was so good that when my brother Nathan’s name flashed on an incoming call, I didn’t hesitate to answer it like I usually did at that point in our relationship.
“Hey, where are you?” he asked.
“Driving to a planning meeting for my 5th reunion.”
“Can you pull over? I have some news.”
I rolled my eyes. He was always so dramatic.
“I’ve been in standstill traffic for 25 minutes already. What’s up?”
After an extended pause he exhaled and said “Where specifically are you? Like…where are you stuck in traffic?”
As it turns out, I was stuck in the traffic from a rollover car accident that my mom was in and he was calling to tell me it was serious — to come meet the family at the hospital. In order to do that, I first needed to drive past the scene, where to my horror, the paramedics were still actively using the “jaws of life” to extricate my mom from the car. I would later learn that she had severed arteries in her foot and was being administered life saving blood transfusions on site to buy her the time they needed to get her out of the car and to the emergency room.
My brother managed the absolute miracle of keeping me calm(ish) and convincing me to continue to meet her at the hospital as planned, stressing that my stopping would just distract the first responders from doing their jobs. I felt so helpless, a feeling we all got very used to in the coming days.
Her injuries were extensive — significant blood loss from the severed arteries, a punctured lung, broken ribs, countless abrasions, and other things they couldn’t yet discover hiding under the more immediate traumas. After stabilizing her life, the most emergent issue was her foot.
My mom was also enjoying the beautiful day with her windows down and music up. She was driving home from work to a delicious dinner al fresco with my Dad. Because of how she was seated, her foot went out the open window and was crushed during the rollover, her heel shattered and foot torn to the point doctors weren’t sure they’d be able to save it, let alone repair it enough for her to ever use again.
The same position that caused this specific injury also saved her life. As her foot went out the window she fell sideways between the two bucket seats. Had she been upright on the roll…well, I don’t like to think about that.
She would go on to have eight surgeries over the course of two years and will spend her lifetime managing pain and deficits. There were a multitude of lessons learned daily during this time — not the least of which is that my mom is a complete and total badass who through the sheer force of her will, overcame the limitations placed upon her. (Ask me about her mantra sometime. It’s a fantastic story of perseverance involving F-bombs and a deep love of Starbucks.)
The lesson she impressed above all, and does her best to model still, is to choose joy. It’s not “a miracle” that she lives an incredibly active life and that you would never guess her disabilities just by looking at her — it was her choice. One, her doctors often remarked, most people with her injuries didn’t make. Many are content simply to have saved the limb and don’t pursue the quality of life my mom has achieved.
Choose joy.
The joy you choose in these moments is not the coffee mug sentiment or Hallmark platitude. It’s the only choice you can ever really make: how you react to a situation. Let’s face it, many of the unexpected “surprises” that happen in life — the big stuff you have to react to — are not things you get to choose. They’re cancer diagnoses. Affairs. Car wrecks. Suicides. Miscarriages. Freak accidents. Layoffs. The list goes on.
Under those circumstances, choosing joy certainly doesn’t come naturally. You still have to acknowledge, feel, and process your hard feelings. You can and will have no bones days.
But there are many significant things in life you do get to choose: where you work, what you do, who you surround yourself with, the hobbies you pursue, the energy you bring to each day.
In those moments, as best as you can, choose what brings you joy. Keep choosing it. Advocate for yourself. Let others know what brings you joy. Learn theirs. Advocate for them. That will bring you joy, too.
The act of continuously choosing joy is an ongoing practice, and even as I write this, one I have to admit I’m not always particularly good at.
It’s good to do an occasional audit. If you haven’t paused to take an inventory of your opportunistic or autopilot choices versus the intentionally joy-seeking ones, what better time than now: the season of gratitude and joy.
If you’ve got it, celebrate and share it.
If you don’t, go find it.
