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Good Weeks and Bad Weeks
We all have bad weeks – Tiger Woods, Gene Morranno, the Pope . . . It really doesn’t matter who you are – bad weeks spring upon us all and usually when we least expect it. One of the worst feelings in the world is when that third or fourth strange event occurs over the course of a few hours and you know what’s coming – a week from . . . well, down below.
Last week was a real doozey for me and it started the way all “mother of bad weeks” must – with oral surgery. Several months ago my dentist advised me that owing to the blessing of an excessive amount of gum tissue I needed “perio-something-something surgery” performed as soon as possible.
“I thought not having enough gum was usually the problem,” I protested.
“It often is,” he replied. “But you’ve got the reverse.”
He put me in touch with one Dr. Barry Wolf – about the nicest guy you could ever hope to meet that you never hope to meet. Barry said he could do it in about 3 months.
Apparently having more gum tissue than one needs isn’t that unusual. Upon hearing my brother had faced the procedure I asked for his thoughts. “Absolute misery” was his response. (You can always count on brothers to provide relief and comfort in such matters.) It hung over my head like a death sentence. But the day finally came and it wasn’t that bad - at least at first.
“I feel fine,” I told the nurse after round one of the procedure.
“Wait ‘till the Novocain wears off,” she advised with a slight smirk that made it seem like she enjoyed telling me.
“Must be a friend of my brothers,” I thought.
But she was right. It was “uncomfortable,” and in fact at times it hurt like . . . well, from down below. But the week wasn’t that bad yet – that began the following morning.
As usual we were running behind and Dad had reverted to the “fourth and ten with no time left on the clock” strategy of shaking up some chocolate protein shakes for our four children as we pushed them out the door to school. (Let’s just say we are somewhat “logistically challenged” on weekday mornings.) I was using my normal holding technique on the large mixing shaker, when one of our little rocket scientists advised me that I was doing it all wrong. “Dad, place your index finger over the little pour spout tab on top,” she advised.
“I always keep my hand around the spot where the lid meets the bottle,” I responded. “If the little tab pops open it’s no big deal, but if that lid comes off what a disaster that would be!”
“You can do both,” insisted Gussie, “just slide your index finger up . . .”
I pondered her advice briefly and in a moment of parental weakness, based on the idea that I needed to demonstrate that I listen to them at least every NOW and then, I complied.
It was decidedly not the time.
I had given the 32 plus ounce canister maybe two rotations in the rapid up-down cycle when BOOM! The lid separated from the main canister below which shot to the floor like a rocket. The bottom hit perfectly square on the wood planking at my feet - creating, by virtue of some physics anomaly only Einstein could explain, a symmetrical geyser that covered every surface in all directions for about 8 feet. Partially mixed chocolate goo dripped from my glasses onto my already covered chocolate face and bath robe . . . I could see more of the brown ectoplasm oozing down the back of the sofa in the next room.
It wasn’t a disaster. It was a cataclysm nearing biblical proportions. If God had used chocolate protein shake instead of manna in the wilderness this is what it would have looked like. My son George was also bodily caught in the impact zone – he very much resembled the guy from the television show, “Dirty Jobs.” The wife and other three children were laughing so hard they were in danger of wetting their pants. It took quite a while for them to stop.
My teeth were killing me.
“This . . . could be . . . a really . . . bad week,” I thought.
Little did I know.
The balance of days was made up of a series of ridiculous events, the sequence of which seemed only possible by some conspiracy allowed by the Holy Spirit Himself. From broken shoelaces to computer malfunctions, I was caught in a tempest of “mal-practiced moments” which reached a peak when the 60 gallon aquarium in our basement “back-siphoned” through an air line, slowly flooding our lower den and storage area with green tinted, algae laden, biological water from . . . well, down below.
It took three days of sorting, drying, cleaning, re-storing and a steam cleaner rental to resolve the mess. I would have gladly done the chocolate shake clean-up a hundred times in lieu of it.
But as the “tragedies” progressed I found some strange measure of peace in the midst of it all. At first I wasn’t sure where such a perspective came from – after all – I’m no different than anyone else when it comes to keeping my composure in the face of such ordeals. But later in the week it hit me – a good friend had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and had been in the forefront of my thoughts. With her “real life experience” knocking so closely at my door, the unusual sequence of worldly hassles just didn’t seem particularly trying. I was reminded that being better tuned to the “real world,” even by pain or sadness, carries its own particular blessing of “real perspective.”
As a wise man once told me, “Life – I mean real life with all its pain and joy - is happening ‘out there’ all the time - and we shouldn’t allow the busy details of our days to overshadow it.”
As Thanksgiving and the holidays approach, and the New Year beyond, we could do worse than to remember those simple words. May we all strive to be thankful for both the blessings and the trials – the victories and defeats - that keep us focused upon the real and the holy . . .
Let us count it ALL blessing – for ultimately life is nothing less.
- Stuart