LOOK DOWN AND BELIEVE

LOOK DOWN AND BELIEVE. YOU ARE NOT ALONE

The street was crowded with early rush-hour traffic. Their horns beeping, maniac drivers speeding past me acting as if their very lives depend on making the next green light and getting home 1.3 minutes sooner. Trucks that belong in the right lane only are in the left lane too. Man, I hate trucks. Life would be so much easier if there were no trucks and no trains to deal with. Actually, best case scenario would be to be on a deserted island that has smooth, curving, paved streets piercing through the wooded landscape and I’m the only one with a vehicle, which of course would be a Jaguar. I like the hood ornament. I daydreamed a bit about this as I drove 10 miles below the limit behind a stupid truck.

Although it was only 3:30 or so in the afternoon, it seemed everyone was going home early this Friday afternoon. What a drag, having to deal with people who were in such a hurry to get home that they were driving like idiots, weaving in and out of lanes, in a scurry to get back to their little lives in their little houses after a hard day’s work to switch on the TV, slurping beer as they lay on their couches, lamenting over their personal tragedies. And then on the other hand, you’ve got the people who don’t know what the speed limit is and they hang about in the left lane, hemming you in behind them, just to piss you off.

My son was buckled safely in his car seat in the back seat of the car. He was a good baby all bundled up and smiling at me in the rear-view-mirror and he was getting so big so fast. He was eating cheerios out of a plastic travel container intended for a small child’s use at snack time and car rides such as these. I had handed it to him and had placed the removable top of the container on the passenger seat right next to me.

Mikey ate happily while my mind was jabbering away. My thoughts switched from traffic issues to thinking about a lot of things but mostly of the baby I had lost almost 2 years ago. She was born 4 months too early and was just too small to survive. She was a child created by love and she had two parents here on this earth who truly wanted her and needed her. It was a loss that I felt so deeply in my soul that I don’t believe there are any words to convey how this felt. I had never known such pain in all my life and pain had never been a stranger to me. But this was different. I had wanted this child more than anything. I had dreamed about her.

When I was told I was having another girl I was ecstatic! Visions of Barbie dolls and tea parties, pony-tails and first days at school flooded my head. But, around 3 months I encountered complications. I was restricted to bed rest for the next month. Unfortunately, God had other plans and at 4 months my water broke and the doctors said the baby would probably not survive, even if they could stop the labor. If she did survive, she would probably have birth defects, maybe severe. She would probably need surgery, maybe several.

My husband, Bob, had 3 brothers. One of them, the youngest, David, was born severely retarded, probably caused by lack of oxygen at birth. It was David who I thought about while contemplating this decision. Was it fair to make my husband go thru it all again with his own child? What if the baby is retarded? I couldn’t do that to him. As much as I loved this child, I loved my husband with all my heart so, I agreed to allow the labor to continue. There wasn’t anything the doctors could do anyway.

Samantha was born only weighing a few pounds. I never held her in my arms. She was too weak to cry and too small to survive. There were to be no Barbie dolls or tea parties. I knew at this moment that I still had a very fragile heart because it was breaking, shattering into millions of little pieces. My baby girl died just a few hours later and a part of me died with her.

But, God had taken her from me and I was so incredibly angry. I was angry at God, if there even was a God. I was angry at the doctors – they were useless. I was angry at myself. Was there something I could have done differently? Was there something that I should have done but didn’t?

My thoughts turned to angry, bitter questions that were more like accusations or statements of fact. If there was a God, why was he so cruel? Was I being punished for the abortion that I had years ago? Why had he taken my baby away from me? She was innocent in every way. Didn’t she deserve life? Didn’t I deserve to be her mother? My mind raged on. I could feel my hands clinch the steering wheel as we drove along, my knuckles turning white.

Mikey was done with his cheerios. He was only a year old and couldn’t talk yet, but he was incredibly smart. He was making his cute little baby talk noises, handing me his container, telling me in his own language that he was done with them. He was my newest reason to stay whole and not to let myself break into millions of little pieces. I had to stay strong.

I reached back taking the cheerio container out of his little hand. The container was still half full. I reached down to grab the lid which I had put on the seat next to me, but it wasn’t there.

“God damn it!” I couldn’t find the lid! I didn’t want to dump the cheerios out for fear that my little munchkin man in the back seat might want more before the ride was over and the destination reached. God forbid!

I kept one hand on the steering wheel and searched with the other hand all over and around the seat. “Where the hell is that lid?”

As I searched my thoughts kept coming – God doesn’t exist – he can’t exist! No good God would allow such pain and evil in the world, would he? It’s all a man-made fairy tale. There’s no one out there watching over us at all. There is no invisible, all-powerful guy in some far away place in the clouds who watches over us, knows all we do and think. What a load of crap! There is no God. There are no angels. This life is all there is. It’s the only logical explanation. We’ve all been brainwashed into believing this religious bullshit.

“But where the hell is that lid?” It was really starting to get on my nerves so I pulled the car over at the next corner, turning into a Mobil gas station. “I bet it fell in between the door and the seat.” I got out of the car, walked over to the passenger side door and began my search.

I searched behind the seat, around the seat, underneath the seat. I even looked in the back seat to see if maybe it had slipped somehow back there, no luck. Mikey had fallen asleep by this time and was resting, looking like a sweet, little angel, peacefully as I frantically searched for the God damned lid!

My brain kept talking. Angels…..what good is this lie. It only gives us hope but in reality, the hope is a lie. I don’t believe in any of them. I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in Angels. I don’t believe in heaven. I don’t believe in any of it! We are all alone in this world.

Okay, the lid is gone. Don’t know where it went and I’m too pissed off at this point to care. I dump the cheerios on the grass for the birds and get back behind the wheel of the car. I turned back out onto the street hoping that Mike wouldn’t want those cheerios that I just dumped out because I couldn’t find the stupid, fucking lid!

My mind became very quiet all of a sudden, a strange kind of quiet. It was similar to the numbness that my head feels when I’m high but different somehow. The silence was barely even noticed at first. And then, the strangest thing happened to me. It’s actually one of the strangest things to ever have happened to me. A little voice in my head was talking, only it wasn’t my voice, it wasn’t the usual voice that I heard. This voice was very different, almost a whisper, a male voice and all it said was “Look down and believe. You’re not alone.” It repeated itself over and over several times and finally I comprehended what it was saying and I listened to it. I looked down at the seat and there sitting in plain view, smack dab in the middle of the front passenger seat was the lid to the cheerios container. It was sitting right there! How could that be?

Disbelief turned into amazement and then shock. Had I missed it in my search? How could I not have seen it? It’s sitting right there! Look at it! It’s just sitting right there! I was so shaken I had to pull over to the side of the road. Tears ran down my cheeks and an incredible feeling came over me. It was joy and sorrow all mixed up together and I cried harder than I had ever cried before. My whole body was trembling, shaking so much that it scared me. I wasn’t alone and in fact I believe that this was the very first time I was aware of devine intervention. It was the first time I was truly aware of the very real presence of God and he had played a joke on me with the cheerios lid.

Now, Moses saw a burning bush and the saints, they have beautiful, extravagant visions – I guess I’m just an average kind of girl - I found the presence of God thru a Tupperware lid. God also blessed me that day with a new-found feeling and a life lesson….

IF YOU CHANGE THE WAY YOU LOOK AT THINGS,
THE THINGS YOU LOOK AT CHANGE.

This life lesson was to become my next life mission. I would spend the next 10 years or so trying to change the way I viewed the world and myself. Only this time, from this point on I was never alone because His presence was always with me and this comforting fact has helped to heal some of the wounds and put together most of the pieces. But, God’s got a great sense of humor and he would continue to demonstrate this sense of humor numerous times in my life. It was up to me to catch on, realize the pun and laugh at myself…..laugh at the joke……smile with God….and finally be able to live a life that I could be proud of.

I found a lot more than just a Tupperware lid that day – I found myself. I wasn’t particularly fond of the person that I was but I wasn’t going to give up. I would change myself by changing the way that I viewed my life. This small detour in my way of thinking made an incredible impact on what was to happen from that day forward.

Something incredible had occurred – I found a feeling that I hadn’t experienced since I was a small child and even then it was incredibly rare. God blessed me and allowed me to feel joy and happiness again. Not shallow, temporary feelings that depended on the events of the moment, but feelings that penetrated my soul – good feelings that would last forever.

I try to thank Him everyday but not with just words. When I am kind to someone who is bitter and resentful…I’m thanking God. When I admit to a mistake or misjudgment…..I’m thanking God. When I help a stranger…..I’m thanking God. Just think what would happen if the whole world thanked God everyday in this way - not by going to church on Sundays – any sinner can do that and still go out and sin Sunday evening and the rest of the week. The best way to give sincere thanks for your blessings is to give away all the love in your heart – give it to anyone and everyone. Give your love to those who don’t want it. God does this for each of us, everyday. Actions speak louder than words. If it’s not written in the bible…it’s simply an oversight…..