Perspective and Miracles

I was out doing some ecclesiastical visits yesterday afternoon when I received four successive calls on my cell phone. After quickly wrapping up the current visit, I called my wife and she informed me that my mother had had a fall at the church just down the street from our house, and was being prepared for transport to the emergency room. I arrived at the church to the sight of a fire truck, an ambulance, and a half dozen EMTs, paramedics and other emergency personnel. A man that I didn't know expressed that he was glad I had made it and that my mom was still inside. I entered the church in time to see four men lifting my mom onto a stretcher as she cried out in pain.

My mom was with my sister and her kids in the hallway at church and were nearly the last ones out the door for the day. She had a minor stumble in the hallway and caught herself with her left leg when she felt something crack across her hip, and then fell to the floor. Her femur had broken clean in half, near the hip (they call this a broken hip).

My brother and I followed her to the emergency room where treatment began. A host of doctors and nurses examined her, administering pain medication, taking x-rays, a CAT scan, and other necessary procedures. She was in severe pain, but was surrounded by her children and competent medical personnel.

As she told her story of her hip fracture to the attending caregivers several times, she also explained why she wore a supportive boot on her right foot--that was due to a spontaneous bone fracture that occurred a couple of months ago. One of the technicians exclaimed, "Wow, you've had a rough year so far," to which my mom replied, "Yes, especially with my husband dying in January."

So yes, it had been a very difficult year. One might wonder why all these trials were compounded in six short months: the physically and emotionally exhausting process of helping her husband pass away from cancer and the resulting whirlwind of funerals, forms and phone calls that followed; a few months afterwards a foot fracture that immobilized her for six weeks; and only three days since she had begun driving again, now she had a broken hip that would require surgery and probably another six weeks in a rehab center.

We are all discouraged for her. Planned vacations will have to be rescheduled. Baby births and blessings may be missed. Serving and helping her children, which is where she derives the most satisfaction in life, will be postponed. Why these trials?

I did not sleep well last night. Each time I awoke I thought of Mom and her pain, wondering how she was faring, and anxiously anticipating the surgery this morning. It was around 3:00 AM this morning though, that I had a thought that absolutely terrified me: what would have happened if she had fallen at home?

My mother is still young and independent, and her children have not been in the mindset of checking in with her regularly in case of such an event. In short, things could very easily have been much worse. It is possible that she may have gone for days without being discovered, had she fallen at the wrong time, in a place where she could not move and could not contact the outside world.

This change in perspective caused me to rethink all the things that had happened to her.

Her spontaneous foot fracture was not caused by a stumble or any hard impact; it was a ticking time-bomb that could have gone off at any time. And thankfully, it did not occur until after she was done being a full-time caregiver for my dad in his last days battling cancer. Thankfully, she could get around and attend to his many needs without the disruption of being immobile. The funeral was over and most of the paperwork was sorted out before she was forced to take it easy and recover herself.

Likewise, this broken hip was another time-bomb. There was no terrible fall; the hip was broken before she ever hit the ground. In reality, it was weak and could have broken at any time. We are so blessed that my mom and dad were not separated during the last months or weeks of his life, with him in a cancer facility and her in a rehab facility. Instead, he died at home with her by his side. We are blessed that her hip broke in a public place where help was immediately available, rather than at home where it may have taken hours or days to get help. And we are probably blessed that her foot was doing so much better so that she didn't have to deal with rehabilitation of both breaks at once.

Instead of so many possible bad combinations of events, her trials mostly came one at a time. Yes, they came in quick succession, but for the most part, they did not overlap. One could even choose to view this as a miraculous, orchestrated series of events from an all-wise Father who was careful not to pile on too much at once, while still allowing the pains and trials of mortality that are required to foster our development and growth.

As she lay in the Emergency Room with powerful medication eventually giving her relief from pain, I realized what a blessing it is to live in a time when such medicines were well understood and readily available. It is a blessing that a skilled surgeon can repair the bone and that with only a month or two of rehab, she can be walking again. It is a blessing that there are wonderful emergency response personnel and kindly good Samaritans who will help someone in need. It is a blessing that she lives so close to her children, so that we can offer support. It is a blessing that her sons hold the priesthood and could unite with her faith and the faith of her daughters to bestow upon her a blessing of comfort and healing through that divine power.

It just took a little perspective shift for me to see that even during severe trials, miracles and blessings are still occurring.