R E C A LC U L AT I N G by Randi McNiel
RECALCULATING!
January 2020 – A New Year You may remember the old GPS that gave you directions as you drove to your destination. If you did something contrary to what it told you to do – like miss a turn, or you turned left instead of right – it would stop and say, “Recalculating.” It would then come up with new directions to get you back on track. As we begin a new year many of us go into it with New Year resolutions, or at least some idea of what we hope to accomplish. Maybe there are things you want to do differently, or perhaps something you’d like to start – a hobby you want to take up, or a new habit you want to form. A new year is a new beginning, a fresh start, a clean page. It is the hope of something better. For me, the year 2020 was going to be brighter following a very sad and challenging 2019. My brother had died in January following an 8-year battle with cancer. My dad died in June at the ripe old age of 99, but a major loss for me as he was the one I called every morning as a sounding board while I struggled with my husband’s Alzheimer’s. Right after that, following a 6-year battle with my husband’s Alzheimer’s and Vascular Dementia, I made the hard decision to place him in a board and care since he was no longer walking. I visited him every day and fed him dinner, treasuring every moment I had with him. But in October, my husband passed away. So much loss, so much grief and pain – it was over-
whelming.
16 | M AG AEVERY Z I N E N ACORNER ME FAITH ON
Friends stepped up to make the coming holidays a little brighter for me. My two childhood friends came to town and we planned a Girl’s Day of activities. My fellow Stephen Ministers at church invited me to join them for their Christmas Potluck. A Holiday Champaign Breakfast was coming up that Saturday at the senior community where I live, and our church’s annual Festival of Christmas Music with choir, orchestra and handbells would be that Sunday – a full week of activities with friends after being sidelined from activities for so long. And 2020 was just around the corner. I had hopes of going back to choir, participating in a grief share group, getting out with friends and finding a new normal without my husband and the responsibilities of care giving. That’s when God stepped in with a different plan. It came in the form of a cricket in my bathroom the night before my Girl’s Day out. I fell and broke my ankle. It was as if God was saying, “Recalculating.” What? Seriously? I would spend the next 2 nights in the emergency room followed by a month in a nursing care and rehab facility – through Christmas and New Year’s. I would miss all of those activities with my friends that was to have eased the grief and bring me some joy. I would spend another 6-8 weeks in a non-weight-bearing cast – going into February unable to drive, to work, to go anywhere. And God says, “recalculating?” I didn’t get it then and I don’t understand it now.
