Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
Precious threads
I once wrote a poem about community and how empowering it is to belong and yet know that we are all beautiful and unique, woven from threads from many places and experiences. I still think of life as a tapestry created from so many different sources. I also think it is possible to follow a thread back through time and see all of the connections that contributed to the pattern, or started a new design all together.
This year I will be 74. That’s a lot of thread. And at times the threads have become knotted and made a small imperfection in the markings. I also know that the knot represents a place where I had to slow down and not be undone by the circumstances. Each knot opens a new color, a new design. Some knots are bigger than others. Some knots can be unraveled so the pattern can continue as it evolves.
In 1949 my parents were living in India. They had tried, unsuccessfully, to have a baby. Then my mother heard about an Indian doctor, Dr. Shirodkar, who had perfected a new technique to deal with certain obstacles to pregnancy. His technique involved inserting a small amount of gas to open up a blocked fallopian tube. She told me once that after the procedure she was lying in the hospital bed in a fair amount of pain. She looked out her window and there was a buzzard sitting on a branch staring at her. My mother had a hell of a sense of humor and the irony of a buzzard observing someone trying to create a life made her laugh out loud. Within a short while, I was made – in India.
So my earliest threads have their origins halfway around the world. I have never been to India yet I feel a little sense of belonging there. I also have a sense of the importance of the circumstances that led my mother to try an experimental procedure, in a hospital far away from her roots, by a doctor who spent his life helping women give birth.
My children happened because I made a decision well before they were born to stay in St. Louis after nursing school. I met their father and changed my mind about leaving St. Louis and was offered a job at my alma mater hospital. I sometimes wonder what might have happened if I had taken the job in Columbia, Missouri, as a surgical nurse. My patterns would have been woven from very different threads.
I think about the people who are precious to me. Our meetings happened because we encountered one another at the right place and at the right time for a friendship to flower. Sometimes I see how my tapestry has been built by the many colored threads that represent each person whom I call “friend”. I never know when I meet someone new how any relationship will transpire. But there is a certain energy exchange between people destined to be woven into another person’s life.
My friendship with Katie is a perfect example of how this works. I met her because I was taking a stained glass class from her husband. When he found out I am a nurse he told me his wife had just had a baby and was ready to go back to work. I needed a nurse on the Psychiatric floor where I was the head nurse. On the morning of her interview I watched her flow down the hall to the nurses station. I spent five minutes with her and knew she is a special person. That was over 40 years ago and we are definitely woven into each other’s life.
I’ve heard it said that there are no coincidences. Albert Einstein used to say that “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” I also love the quote from Deepak Chopra: “The coincidences or little miracles that happen every day of your life are hints that the universe has much bigger plans for you than you ever dreamed of for yourself.” There is a master weaver looking out for each of us. And so it is. Amen.