Is fate inevitable?

The answer to that question would seem to be yes, until we prove otherwise. Physicists everywhere are constantly adopting theories that attempt to confirm randomness or adopt an infinite number of universes, but ultimately until we find a way to access these alternate realities we are tied to the existence that we currently sense. The beauty of fate is that its hindsight is 20/20; we can never know if any other option truly existed, perhaps we were tied to our eventual decision ever since the moment of the big bang.

Why am I addressing this question? Where is all this going? Well, to start, the idea for this blog came to me while I was watching the season finale to Lost, which I hope will get its own short blog (I was also asked why the season finale of DH didn't warrant the blog that Grey's Anatomy did, but I guess that was because I wasn't completely outraged by all the events that occurred, and didn't see much of a need to write anything about it - the show is what it is: a funny soap opera on in prime but only once a week). When Desmond goes to turn the key in the secret release for the electromagnetic discharge (if you don't watch Lost ignore that random statement) he turns to Locke and says that he doesn't believe in fate, but that he knows that each of them saved each other's lives due to random past events. This statement instantly made me wonder what could be a better example of actually believing in fate, but more importantly it made me think of past events in the lives of those close to me that have in one way or another affected the entire futures of those around them. This brings me to a story that my mom once told me that seemingly meant little to her, as she's led a rather mysteriously and incredible life I'm finding out all the time, but this story has come back to my mind many times since. Let me start at the beginning, but I mean way back in the beginning.

My mom grew up in Monroe, MI as the classic All-American catholic school girl. She attended catholic school from her first day of kindergarden all the way until her high school graduation. She achieved all A's throughout school and had big plans for the future. Her passion in life was art, and I bet that had she had her way she would have attended an art school out there somewhere. Unfortunately, when my mom was growing up in the kind of family she was there were only so many respectable positions (teacher, nurse, secretarial work, etc) that a woman could hope to go into without upsetting the delicate balance of things.

My mom felt limited by her parents' influence, and she eventually chose nursing for a career. Again, she attended a catholic nursing school and then worked for a catholic hospital. The fact that catholicism was so central to her life came into play when she met my father, whose father (my late Grandfather Ludlow, the cause of my unusual middle name) was a born again Christian and completely opposed to all things catholic. He refused to attend the wedding or continue employing my father at what is now his propane company if their wedding was a catholic ceremony, and my mom hated my grandfather for this forever.

After 27 years of marriage, most of which were good and devoid of argument or conflict, my mom surprisingly left my father for many strange reasons I won't divulge in this blog, but the one overwhelming issue that she has relayed to me was that my grandfather tried to have too much input into my parents' major life decisions, and my mom had always resented that my father wouldn't take her side in such affairs. To be quite honest my mom couldn't have been more reasonable in the divorce proceedings, as she chose to not take away half of my dad's company, but she made out quite well in terms of alomony and such.

Once my mom had moved out she decided that she needed some useless job to pass the time, and having quit nursing when my brother and I were very young to become a stay at home mom, she chose a job as a waitress at a restaurant (she now tells me that her nursing specialty can make as much as $36 an hour, but she doesn't think she could handle the commute anywhere). She had waitressed long long ago to make ends meet during her college years, and her upbeat friendly personality allowed her to excel to the position of manager in no time.

One day while she was back in the kitchen instructing the cooks on some matter she had a panicked waitress come to her to tell her that there was a baby in the dining area choking so badly that it had begun to turn blue. She rushed out to the young child's aid and used her nursing training from years ago to peform the proper infant heimlich manuever, and the baby spit up whatever had been bothering it and he lived. Everybody else in the place had frozen and given up, but my mom saved the baby's life. That child owes the entire rest of its existence to my mom. Potential children, grandchildren - all because he made it through that one day.

The point of all this is that no matter how hard anything that my mom had endured had been on her, no matter how many decisions she felt were out of her control, no matter how stressful my parents' divorce was for our family, that baby would have likely died if not for all those events in our lives that led to that moment.

This brings me back to my own life. I feel like a lot of terrible things have happened to me that I certainly don't deserve, but I don't get angry about it. I can't change the past. I understand my mistakes and I have tried to learn from them. Sometimes I step forward, sometimes I get caught up and find myself stumbling back, but I feel as though I've moved forward. Life is a process.

It's true that at times I wonder why I'm stuck where I am and I feel a deep sense of shame. Sometimes though, when I look deeper, I realize that without the past couple years I would have missed out on so much that I didn't learn in college, and failed to meet so many unique people that I otherwise would have never known. The struggle that I have forced myself into, both in my mind and often financially, has prepared me for the real world in ways that I never could have imagined growing up in Lyons, OH. Some could call me a failure, but I don't like to feel that way because I know that despite my flaws I lead an honest and honorable life and I make an impact on the lives of others. My time will come, it's as inevitable as the fate I spoke of earlier. Maybe it's wishful thinking to believe that all of this has happened for a reason, but in my opinion there is never anything wrong with a little bit of hope. There is always time for change, and there is always a little room for a flash of greatness, no matter how brief.