We’re downsizing right now. In a few weeks when the unboxing commences, my wife will give me “that look” when she sees that my old high school football helmet made the trip. She wanted me to get rid of it. She thinks that for me it’s a reminder of glory days, and it is, but not the kind she may presume.
That was the helmet I wore when I was enough of a knucklehead to see my future only in terms of Friday and Saturday nights. And my Friday nights weren’t going so well after my coach changed everything for me and moved me to back-up linebacker. That meant I wouldn’t really play that much and my own dreams of any kind of an actual future were dashed.
I was wearing that helmet one Friday night when running at full speed, looking up for the ball, and my chin met the crown of an opposing player’s helmet, knocking me out for a few moments. This was long before there was such a thing as “concussion protocol.” They got me on my feet with smelling salts. To this day I don’t remember playing in that game, but the next day I watched myself on film finish the rest of that game.
The next week, the coaches moved me back to my original defensive end position, which changed my life trajectory. I had the game of my life, and the film of that game attracted the attention of the football coach at Duquesne University, a school I would not have gotten into given my propensity to put having fun before school work.
If it wasn’t for that helmet I wouldn’t have gone to that college.
A few months later, on another field, a group of friends and I were playing softball. I filled in at catcher, and thanks to a collision at home plate, I found myself the next day in surgery to screw my ankle back together. There would be no more football for me after that. So, I decided to focus intensely on my new journalism major.
If it wasn’t for that softball injury, I wouldn’t have happened into the communications field.
Fate is a Funny Thing
The next year, I was at an off-campus party and I met a cute young girl who happened to go to Duquesne as well. We had a lot in common, and we had a few laughs. Four years later she became my wife.
The two of us have built a life together. We’ve worked, we’ve bought and fixed up homes, we’ve become integral in our community, in our kids’ schools, and in our families’ lives.
When we think about the things we should be thankful for, we often think of the good things. Friends, family, and sometimes the sheer luck of being in the right place at the right time, or not being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Fate is Not Always Funny
About 11 years into our marriage, I saw an allergist, and he put me on antibiotics for an extended period of time. I started having strange leg sensations. These were listed as possible side effects, so the doctor took me off of the antibiotics. Just like other key moments in my life, I can pinpoint an exact time when my life took a turn, and this was yet another one.
It transpired over years, but very steadily and very gradually, parts of my legs weakened to the point of feeling like rubber in certain muscle groups. The condition baffled doctors who never could come up with a diagnosis. But the one thing they all agreed on was that I was wrong to suspect those antibiotics as a trigger, even though to me it there was a clear cause-and-effect. Over two decades later, this thing that those doctors ruled out now has a name. It’s called floxing, and it has left me reliant on a cane and a couple of ankle braces to get around. Sorry, docs. Floxing is a thing.
If it wasn’t for my being floxed and the process for dealing with it, I’m quite sure I would not have become as faithful. True faith is something for which to be thankful.
One thing we almost never do is look back to trace the pathway to the good things that happen to us. But if we do, it’s not uncommon to find that something bad might have precipitated the good.
Without a concussion and a broken ankle and the impact of those antibiotics, the trajectory of my life most certainly would have been different. I would never have met my wife, had my career, had my children, many friends, and now my extended family that includes my sons’ partners and a grandson, who has introduced me to a kind of joy I never could have imagined. I wouldn’t have an unshakable faith and the inherent confidence and optimism that come with it.
I’m thankful for all of that. This holiday season, when I set up my new office, there will be shelves, and on one of them a tattered old green helmet with a bent facemask will keep vigil, reminding me always to be grateful for the bad things.