The Worst Thing That Ever Happens To You

"A Country Wedding," 1951, The Bennington Museum, Bennington, Vt., © 2007 Grandma Moses Properties Co., New York

My dad has an expression he reserves solely for moments of ridiculous self-pity: “May that be the worst thing that ever happens to you.” It’s appropriate for the many first world troubles we face. Couldn’t get a reservation at your favorite restaurant? Missed your bus? Spilled coffee on your favorite shirt?

May that be the worst thing that ever happens to you.

Trust me when I say this did not go over well when I was a teenager. It stings a little, doesn’t it? But it’s also an instant reality check (as only Yiddish expressions can be-I think that's its origin but I can't seem to find it now). And now? I get it. That’s not to say that we’re not all allowed mini tantrums about the mundane from time to time but really, I think we could all stand to use a bit more empathy in our every day lives. I hope that doesn’t come off as preachy, and I am far from perfect on this front, but it’s just been on my mind because of something that happened yesterday.

I was at the cafeteria in my building when the woman next to me became furious because the line cook apparently forgot her veggie burger. There was muttering and deep sighing and a lot of eye rolling. To be fair, maybe she was just having a bad day and this was the straw that broke it. Maybe she was diabetic or hypoglycemic or just really, really hungry. I tried to be charitable and give her the benefit of the doubt but still, her reaction did seem extreme. She was feeling well enough to berate the line cook so I really don’t think it was a medical emergency. And what did he do with that frustration? Did he shrug it off? Or did it ruin his afternoon? Did he go home and yell at his partner or kick his dog?

Honestly, there was a time when I could have been that woman, incensed by her lack of a veggie burger. For the most part, I’m wired fairly “Type A.” I can easily get impatient with myself and others if I allow myself to go there. But a funny thing has happened since Leo came into my life. I don’t really feel so impatient anymore. Or I feel the impatience, and then it just sort of rolls away from me, washes over me like a wave. I feel impatient with mean people, and people who lack patience for others but really? The coffee line is taking too long? Someone is struggling with their bag on the bus? You don’t know the whole story.

“Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind
of battle.”—Author unknown

This refrain has become something of a mantra for me, the last few years (even if, as some sources claim, it’s an amalgamation of a quote by Ronald Reagen). Don’t get me wrong. I can still swear like a sailor when I’m driving and when Ellie calls me into her room at bedtime for the ninety-seventh time to “tell me something” I want to bang my head against the wall. I am clearly no saint. But let's just say my perspective has shifted.

It’s such a cliché to say that having a child with “special needs” makes you more sensitive, opens your eyes to a whole other world, to a slower pace. But clichés come from truth. It’s difficult to be in a hurry with Leo. He won’t allow it. Why not try out every bench and greet every person you meet from the car to the doctor’s office. You only live once, right?

“The heart breaks open...I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures. Sometimes I think that the pain is what yields the solution.” —Gail Caldwell, Let’s Take the Long Way Home

My heart has broken, I think. Twice. Once when my mother died and once, however briefly, when Leo was born. And I've really tried to do what the writer and chaplain Kate Braestrup instructed: "Let it break open...love more."

I don’t mean to equate Down syndrome with a loss but for me? In the beginning, it surely felt like it. As I’ve written here before, we didn’t know that Leo had Down syndrome in advance, but learned of it in the delivery room. I have no problem admitting I grieved the loss of the baby I thought I was having. So yes, there was a loss there. The loss I’ve experienced has completely marked me, but for the better. I have a son with Down syndrome. Once I thought that was the worst thing that could ever happen to me. Now I know better.

When I was searching for the origin of that quote of my dad's, I was reminded of another gem from one of my favorites, good old Grandma Moses:

“Life is what we make it. Always has been, always will be.”

Honestly I want to staple this to my arm I love it so much. It’s just…everything.

So if you choose to make your life about tantrums from delayed veggie burgers, that’s your business. But may that be the worst thing that ever happens to you.