Relinquishing Control

Have you ever had to give up complete and total control of your life? Most of us in this life would like to say we have ourselves all put together and that every single aspect is within our control, unfortunately sometimes this thing called life has a way of creeping up when least expected and turns you completely upside down. 

What is life exactly one might ask, to me this answer stems far beyond the simple dictionary answer. Life is full of beautiful things and people that come from all sorts of different cultures, life brings joy but also sorrow and grief with life there is also a imminent death. 

Now back to my initial question which most individuals would probably answer yes too let’s put this into perspective. Referring to giving up complete control does not mean that you let your friend choose where you are going for dinner, or even within a relationship that just ended that you couldn’t save. 

This past summer I had the immense opportunity to go travel the world with my family visiting places like London, Portugal, and Spain. Throughout a section of the trip when we docked in Portugal a Spanish speaking country we went on a tour to see some well known Roman Catholic Churches as well as a Castle in what seemed like an enchanted forest, just walking through the gardens was magical and seemed very fantasy like. During the beginning of our tour we asked one of the Cruise line representatives if our tour guide spoke english ecstatically they said: “Yes” we shorty learned that this wasn’t the case although made the most of it singing and playing games on the way to the different destinations. 

It is the moments like this that I love most in life when we are disconnected from the things we are deeply familiar with and left up to our own human devices. It makes me wonder what life would be like without the iPhone and other similar electronic devices. See it was during this trip that I and the rest of my family was left disconnected from the rest of the world back home so freeing but so different at the same time and for those that know me know that I love my phone but I do believe that there is a time and place for the device. 

Even during this experience while most of the power was left up into the hands of our foreign driver I still felt that in that moment that some aspect of my own life was in control for example I knew where I was going and knew we would most likely make it back. 

There are times in life though when we have no control when we question the existence of our humanity when we wonder why things have to end up the way they do. The first time I asked myself this question: I wasn’t sure where I was casting my beliefs. Looking back on what I had learned and understood up to that point life seemed so transparent and then the inevitable happened.

It was the last week of my summer vacation when most students are typically dreading the fact that school starts soon. For me things were different.  I had optimism that this was going to be a great year. The year of new beginnings and a fresh start from my somewhat lackadaisical freshmen year of high school. My family and I had just returned from the trip of a lifetime in Orlando, Florida we stayed at the World Disney World Resorts, and had visited almost all of the theme parks. I didn’t really want the summer to end after having had such an amazing time. It was going great until about a week after our vacation when what seemed to be a small migraine headache that my mother encountered turned out to be no less than a nightmare. In order to understand things a little better it’s important to know that it is pretty typical for someone in my family not to feel well after a family vacation.
Monday August 23, 2010, otherwise by most aspects, a pretty normal day turned out to be one of the most tragic of days in all of my life. I cannot describe much of what was going on during those first few days. It was a complete shock for me to see this relatively healthy woman now lying sick in bed. It wasn’t until the next day when my mom was unable to speak and incapable of swallowing something as simple as soup that we were able to conclude something was drastically wrong. At this time, my Dad immediately took my mother to our local hospital.

While in Sycamore, the local hospital, my mom was put on a feeding tube because of her inability to swallow. This was very uncomfortable for her and scary for me in many regards. After a few days of trial and error the doctors had finally conceded that they had done all they could do up to that point and that she would have to be care-flighted to Cleveland Clinic. I was so emotionally wrecked at that point that all the tears I had been holding back trying to be a big brother to my three younger sisters had just poured out. I became extremely worried during this time. School was the furthest thing from my mind, my grades were average to begin with but were getting worse as the situation progressed. I became very angry and bitter with God for allowing this to happen and I couldn’t justify a reason as to why my family deserved this. Throughout my entire sophomore year it became extremely difficult for me to acknowledge God’s plan because I really didn’t want to believe or accept the fact that a good God could cause something so devastating to happen in my life. While at the Cleveland Clinic my mom underwent several tests and 48 hours later we were told that she had a carotid artery dissection. I had no idea what this meant but the doctors told us that it was going to be a long recovery. During this time my mom was obviously out of work and there became some concern after several months as to whether or not she would be able to return to her occupation in the emergency room. In January of the following year, almost six months later, my mom returned to the Cleveland Clinic and was given clearance to go back to work.
I would say that I had to relinquish all control during this time no part of me could fix what was going on and it was all extremely scary. During the time that my Mom was sick for the better part of half a year my grades in school were drastically affected. I had to take on new roles in the household that took precedent over school at times, at and at others I was simply just too distraught by what was going on to even care. Everyone around me at the time could at testify to the fact that I was not my normal self during that time. Since my dad was also in the middle of selling his business due to a broken economy I felt an added burden in caring for my mom and dealing with the everyday needs of my three sisters. In looking back on it all I wouldn’t want to do it over I couldn’t relive that tragedy. If you asked me do I wish I could have done things differently the answer would be that I did what I thought was best considering the circumstances. 

You can probably tell that just through my stories of family vacations that I come from a relatively fortunate lifestyle and I’m not here to deny that but one term I have always hated being identified with my entire life is being “rich”. I believe that every individual in this life is here to serve a purpose no matter blind, deaf, handicapped, or the greatest athlete, or musician in the world we are all here to serve a unique purpose and sometimes it may take an entire lifetime to discover what that specific purpose actually is.