Mistakes

Mistakes

When I first became a single mother, I promised myself that despite that and the hardships it brought, I would make sure that my children got a bigger picture of the world. We would travel places and see new things.

So that first summer (or maybe it was the second one – my memory gets foggy at times) we took a road trip through all of the western states.

For weeks, or likely months, before we left, my eight- or nine-year-old Nick and I (and the girls occasionally and for brief periods) poured over the large Rand McNally atlas book I’d purchased for this reason.

We looked at different routes and discussed the benefits of each and the sights we might see with each. Should we go the shortest route straight up Highway 5, or should we sidetrack and go through San Francisco to see the Golden Gate Bridge?

Then should we go back to the 5, or should we take the much longer and slower route up the 101 and see the northern California coast and the redwoods?
.

And during the trip, I actually let Nick be our navigator as we drove – telling him what junctions were coming up and asking which route we needed. 

And I’d ask him which route to take, and did we need to go east or west or whatever.

And he got us where we needed to go: all the way from southern California to my sister’s in northern Idaho.

Well, on the return trip, as my brother was driving, we approached a junction and my young navigator in the back seat announced that we needed to take the road to the right.

My brother, being the adult, ignored him, saying he was wrong, and took us to the left. And half asleep in the front passenger seat, I ignored the short dispute and assumed that the grown-up knew best.

Before you know it, we’d driven 50 miles in the wrong direction and were not just lost, but in a completely other state than we should have been in!

Nick looked at the map and told us how to get back on track, and my brother angrily grabbed the map from him saying he didn’t know what he was talking about. Then he conceded that Nick was right, and we got back to the road we should have been on. Mistake corrected.

 

But in our adventure into the state we’d never intended to explore, we got to see sights and scenery that we’d never have seen, so all was not lost.

Then if you will stay with me while I shift gears, you will see that it is all connected in the end….

As always, I loved it as we sat around the table at lunch last Saturday - our family of friends. We are a hodge-podge group that most would probably think peculiar, were they to be a fly on the wall: 

Four of us (three women and a man) are in our 50s – a risk management guy, a teacher, an accountant and a retired teacher/wanna-be writer.

Then there are, oh, probably about ten of us at various times around the table in their 20’s (and I think a few just turned 30.) 

A med student, a social worker, an accountant, one in hotel/services business, one in investment banking, an architect, a few college students, a few currently unemployed and still living at home, and a few whom I sure I forget.

 

And then Abuelita – the 83-yr-old grandmother. (For those who are non-Spanish-speakers, “abuelita” is “grandma” in Spanish.) And though she’s only actually the grandmother of three in the group, all affectionately call her “Abuelita.”

That is the core group, and there are a few others that come and go at various times. And we get together every Saturday at John and Betsy’s house.

We are a pretty rowdy bunch as we squeeze around Betsy’s large table that seats twelve, and overflow, if necessary, onto the patio (or the card table if need be.)

And the topic of discussion ranges just about as far afield as our various ages and walks of life.

We talk about the Lakers, what was on the latest episode of “Lost” or “The Office,” or occasionally politics or party plans. Sometimes the P90X exercise program that many of them are doing.

Sometimes it wanders into bodily functions, or sex or any number of topics one would not expect to discuss around the dinner table, or with your elders – especially your grandmother!

 

But we are a very close-knit and comfortable group. So you never know what to expect, but we always have a great time and laugh a lot.

Well, we were chattering loudly last Saturday when one of our group quietly said (as he passed some food to his right), “Oh and [his wife] is twelve weeks pregnant…”

It was hilarious that none of us were sure we heard him right...or if he said anything at all...and if he had said anything, was joking (as we joke around a LOT.)
 

Several of us looked to him to see if he was joking. But he has the best poker face I’ve ever seen, so you couldn’t have told anyway by his expression.

I looked at him, as he quietly went about eating as though he’d said nothing. And I thought I must have heard it wrong or imagined it.

 

So I looked to the others for some indication that they’d heard it too. But they were looking around just like I was. It was an oddly silent moment in our usual noisiness.

 

After several moments we realized that he actually had said it, and he actually had meant it. And he grinned from ear to ear.

Then, of course, we were all filled with jubilation and everyone stopped their eating to go around and the long table to hug the parents to be.

And being the very open group that we are, someone said they were surprised as the couple was only newly married (eight or nine months ago), and then asked if it was planned.

The father-to-be blushed a little and thus let us know it wasn’t planned. And this turned into some teasing, very funny (okay, even silly) discussions of birth control and sex.

But my focus today is not on our Saturday lunches, but on the “mistake” factor of the unplanned.

As many of you know, my older daughter (also very newly married), is also expecting her first child – my first grandchild. And by the sounds of it, this also was unplanned and unexpected.

And it makes me think of my youngest child – my younger daughter, Erin – who was also unplanned. (I could never really think of her as a mistake though!)

When I found out I was pregnant with her, it’s silly, but I was actually afraid to tell my husband. Because ‘screwing up’ (pun intended) was a capital offense in our household, and of course, the unplanned pregnancy was something I had done all of my own!

But when she came into our lives, we were changed forever and I cannot imagine our lives without the joy she brought. 

Each of my children brought such a beautiful dimension to the landscape or our family that I could never imagine life without any of them.

So I’ve affectionately told many people that Erin was the best “mistake” I ever made.

And as my friends around the lunch table, and my older daughter will undoubtedly find, sometimes “mistakes” bring a joy you’ve never yet known.

So my thought for this week is that sometimes the ‘mistakes’ in our lives can become the most beautiful part of our journey. 

And instead of beating ourselves up, or being fearful to ‘fess up’ to our mistakes (as I was with the third pregnancy), we should embrace the unexpected side-journeys that come our way and see if they don’t bring a new dimension to our lives that we never expected.

For sometimes the ‘mistakes’ in our lives, where we think we got off the path, or into the land of unplanned, can actually be right on the path that God intended in the first place and we just didn’t realize it.

And if not, and it was just a big mistake, He can get you back on the right path

.

Liz Rosas

19 March 2010

LORD, you have assigned me my portion 

and my cup; you have made my lot secure.

You have made known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

                                         Psalms 16:5, 11

Show me your ways, O LORD,
teach me your paths;

                                         Psalms 25:4

Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.

                                          Proverbs 3:5,6