Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs....

Signs. Signs, Everywhere Signs….


When my daughter was in seventh grade I took her to see the movie,
“SIGNS”…I sat and listened carefully as the Reverend and his brother hashed out
the difference between luck and destiny. I lamented over the man’s bitterness
and loss of faith though I felt for his position, having just lost his wife in a
cruel twist of fate.


I remember sitting there later, watching as aliens invaded the Reverend’s house
and he, his children and his brother hid in the basement awash
with terror and horror as the Reverend’s son had a life threatening asthma attack
and no medication to relieve his symptoms.
I felt the Reverend’s pain as both my children have asthma and I understood his
anger with a God who could allow such a thing to happen to an innocent child.


Little did I know that a few months later my daughter would be
diagnosed with two autoimmune diseases of the thyroid and that two years afterward
she would get thyroid cancer.


All my life I’ve battled with the question of what my
purpose was for the time I was put here on earth. From the time I was a child I’d
always felt a strong desire to protect those weaker than me and to watch over
them. I babysat from the time I was twelve on and instinctively knew that one day
I would have kids of my own. In fact, I wanted lots of kids.


Aside from the dream of a large family, I never quite knew just
what it was I was meant to do. I went to college and decided to become an Early
Childhood Teacher but at the last moment dropped out of the program and majored in Psychology.
I foundered for years afterward, never quite getting my footing and eventually
went back to school for Med Tech to become a Lab Technician. And for seven
years that was my profession.


And then I had my two kids…


My daughter was my first born. And from the moment she was
born she suffered health problems. But I was up to the challenge. I always
assumed she was just a little more prone to illness than the average child and
that perhaps her asthma contributed to it. For me it was simply a way of life.
And then in Seventh Grade it became clear that she had some serious problems. And
the medical community for the most part did not seem to take the problems
seriously. Nor did our family and even some of our friends. But as her Mother,
I knew that something was seriously wrong. We went from Doctor to Doctor as
each different crisis arose from her racing heart to hallucinations from severe
insomnia to strange and horrible skin conditions that left her permanently
scarred. And then there was her thyroid that was three times the size of
normal. I fought hard to have her thyroid removed when she was 14 though her
Doctors were reluctant to do so. And still no one seemed to believe that she had
serious problems. Even after her thyroidectomy…


Her health continued to fail, another health condition
called PCOS and I made the decision to home school her for the duration of her
high school years. I rented movies on historical events and made her write umpteenth
papers on Literature read and Social issues discussed. We did Chemistry labs in
our kitchen. And Biology outings out and about Georgia. We got her a laptop and
made sure she had access to good internet and online groups for social
interaction. And I counseled her at every turn…propping her up and supporting her
when she railed against the unfairness of it all. I became friend, confidant,
teacher as well as her Mother. And still I gladly accepted the challenge. She
was my child, my hope for the future.


Then this past winter another lump appeared in her throat
and not long after she had to have another surgery. And then came the cruelest
joke of all. Cancer missed in the original diagnoses when she was 14.


And suddenly I understood all too well the Reverend’s angst.
Why GOD? Why? I asked. How could you do this? What kind of a God are you?


For a few months I stopped speaking to Him…I drank…a lot…and
cried even more…I felt like we were in a black hole and we were never going to
climb out…I began to shutdown emotionally…


And then one day, not too long ago, I came across my DVD of
the movie “SIGNS” and suddenly I had all the answers to all the questions that
I’d been asking. People always question the idea of fate and destiny as opposed
to sheer luck. For is there really a Divine being out there pulling the
strings, prodding us and pulling us along the road that we call life?


Suddenly it struck me that my daughter was my destiny and
that God in his infinite wisdom had been giving me “signs” all along…from my
Education background to my Psychology courses and Med Tech experience and my
innate love of and experience with children. He had prepared me for what was to
come. He had always been with me. From the time that child was born.


If I had any doubts of it, an incident when my daughter was
not quite three quickly wiped them from my mind. The winter before she turned
three we were sitting in our family room in the back of the house. We had a
huge masonry fireplace with a brass and glass enclosure that had a blower
attached to circulate heat from the fire. The room was gated off from the rest
of the house so my daughter and my son could romp around back there in safety. A
bathroom and the kitchen were nearby so we spent a lot of time in that particular
part of the house. Well one night my daughter was standing in front of the fireplace
just staring into the fire. As if out of a ghost story something warned me that
she was too close to the glass doors. I immediately told her to come by me. No
sooner did she turn around then the glass doors exploded. Shards of glass flew
everywhere along with burning embers of the fire. No one was harmed.


Coincidence??? I don’t think so…And I will never doubt again
that God is with me watching out for me and mine, giving me “signs” along the
way…You just have to pay attention...