Chance. Recently I’ve had a lot of contact with my extended family. One of my cousin’s granddaughters was getting married and this signaled a gathering of the clan. One cousin came in from the west coast. He and I were raised together until we were ten. His family then moved to California but we would still see each other periodically over the years. He was married in April of 1973 and we were married in June. He has three grown sons and I have two. He has been retired since 2008.
We talked about all the amazing variables in our lives. So many things have happened and we are still alive to talk about it. He could have been sent to Vietnam but thru an almost miraculous series of events, landed in Germany. He had a brother die in childhood of a rare cancer. Both of my parents died young. We both worked at the same places for many years. He stayed with his employer for over 35 years. I worked at two different places for 20 years each.
We talked about getting old. He turned 71 today. I did last month. He said that no matter how you feel about getting old, an awful lot of people never had that chance. He is really right about that. If I think of the classmates I had who died in the war, or those who died early of illness, accident or addiction, it is quite a large group. I know people who we all thought would be happy and successful who have ended up divorced and barely scraping by. I am satisfied with the choices I have made, but thinking back the least little thing could have made my life much different. I met a girl on a camp out and on a whim asked her to dance. Forty three years later we are still together. What if I hadn’t? I taught for three years and then went to graduate school and entered my career. I could have stayed teaching or ended up in a business career. I would have missed all the wonderful people I came in contact with. I never would have learned from them. I would have learned different things, but maybe not have had the same rich experience. I wouldn’t have had my two wonderful sons. Maybe I wouldn’t have had any children, or God forbid, had daughters. I have always said I don’t think I could have handled that!
The smallest events, the wrong turn, the mistake at work, etc, could have turned everything in a different direction. I would often tell my patients not to compare themselves to others. They would look at relatives, even movie stars, and lament that those people had no real problems—certainly nothing like what they were experiencing. No one knows the crises and forces of others lives. I know men who came back from the war and went right back to the lives they had, and others who came back so damaged emotionally that they never really returned. Some of the damaged ones didn’t even see much combat, but there was usually one event that they could never work thru. One man had a very successful professional career until twenty-five years after the war there was a unit reunion. When he went something made him remember one of his best friends who was killed in a mortar attack. What bothered him was that he had turned one way and his friend had turned another. He had buried that memory for all those years until it came back so strongly that he was unable to sleep or return to work. He was able to work thru much of it but he kept talking about his good luck and his friend’s misfortune.
So we are all products of chance and the variables of existence. This brings me to the wonders of the Chicago Cubs. The last time the Cubs were in the World Series I was six weeks old. I was born in August of 1945 and the Cubs began playing the Detroit Tigers in October of that year. I have seen all the professional Chicago teams win at least one championship except for the Cubs. Now I admit to being a rabid White Sox fan and in Chicago you cant be for both the Cubs and the White Sox. It is against the natural order-at least the Chicago natural order. However I hope the Cubs win for the sake of their fans so maybe they’ll start talking about something else. The Cubs were always the team of the rich kids while the Sox were the poor working relatives. It has gotten worse over the years with development of Wrigleyville and the deterioration of the south side. It is a good metaphor for all of us aging Sox fans. Now we are the ones saying, “wait until next year (or maybe even longer)”. Virginia McCaskey is George Halas’ daughter. She is the principal owner of the Chicago Bears. She is now 93 years old and is furious that her team has deteriorated so much. She always has hope, but “wait until next year” certainly doesn’t sound very hopeful to her. She might not be here. I think I need to continue to focus on being grateful for the “chances” I have had. I still need to work on being more positive about what I have than what I don’t and maybe I do need to learn how to celebrate this poem
These are the saddest of possible words:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon[a] bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double[b] –
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
Franklin Pierce Adams