WHAT IF?

Many times in the course of the last 36 years, I have often asked myself that question. What if? What if I was born a minute sooner, or a minute later, what would have changed in my life? What if I had become a teacher, or never had mumps that resulted in my deafness, what if I never took the train, and not met TLW (The Little Woman) one morning?

The biggest question I have that reoccurs in my mind is: What would have happened if my daughter were not born brain-damaged? How much more easier life would have been, What if my son Joseph had never gotten sick and died, how much happier life would be?

Of course if any of those things did not happen, you would not know me as you do. My life would be different, maybe more self-centered, maybe more angry, or maybe more giving and happier. There is an old saying: God closes one door and opens another. It’s true, it does happen that way. I sit on the board of directors and I do for a reason. My reason is to help others, not just Ellen, and it makes me feel better. It is a selfish reason in some respects, and I guess noble in others.

The loss of a child is a singular catastrophe, whether it is in death or disabilities. A child with a disability is a singular catastrophe: both are filled with anguish for a mother and father, both are painful.

But sometimes we can harness the pain into a force, a force that can change things for the better, even if it is a little bit. Sitting on that board, or on a committee, helping people with disabilities feel even a little better heals me. But it heals me because although the child may not realize what God has wrought, the parents do, and so I work.

It strikes me that ‘What if?’ is the hardest question to answer, but the easiest to respond to!