The Ripple Effect
“Bubbles of Change”
Artwork by Megan J Wheless
July’s theme is “Manifestation”
On Monday, I had a phone appointment with my oncologist as a follow-up to last year’s mastectomy. I learned that since I have a small amount of tissue in my right breast, there was a high possibility that the radiologist will find a possible recurrence of the tumor on my upcoming mammogram and to expect another biopsy as a preventive method. “Again,” my oncologist said, “all very normal. Nothing to worry about.” So obviously, after we hung up, I began to worry which caused waves of grief to rush over me and immobilize me in my daily routine of cleaning the house, job searching, and taking care of the pets.
Thankfully, my husband was working from home that day and he encouraged me to lean into my tears and give myself a break. I went to our bed, curled up in a ball, and cried until my body became soft and sleep overcame me. “Why am I so sad?” I asked myself when I woke up two hours later. My overall health is good and my doctor reminded me that I am at no high risk for tumors and an average or below average risk for breast cancer (since I now only have one breast). The answer to my sadness revealed itself to me while I rested on the couch later that day. My leftover grief was a reminder that I had been holding on to the idea that my life wasn’t supposed to turn out this way: a missing breast reconstructed with silicone and fat tissue, survivor of numerous surgeries and leftover pain from scar tissue, jobless, childless, middle-aged and still seeking her purpose who is tired from helping a husband and stepchildren overcome emotional abuse, and missing one old cat who has stuck by my side for nearly twenty years.
This afternoon, I received a message from a former student with whom I keep in touch a few times a year. He shared with me that he is working towards a promotion at his job (where he started as a floor worker cleaning cars at a large car dealership in Belleville to an assistant manager of the detailing and maintenance department). He sent a picture of his baby boy and told me that sadly it didn’t work out with the child’s mother but he’s doing everything he can to provide and take care of him. “. . .[T]hings don’t always go as planned. . .” he texted me.
Not one to shy away from the truth, I wrote back “You’re right. . .” I shared with him that I married for the first time at 42 and didn’t have children but welcomed bonus stepchildren into my heart instead, a life path I never expected for myself. I stopped myself from the downward spiral of trash talk I tend to do to myself when I have to face my life regrets or old expectations. Instead, I felt this shift happen inside of me and focused all of my energy back into him and his life and praised him for all the things he’s doing well, goals he’s attained, and the love and care he’s already showing for his little baby.
He wrote me back and said my words mean a lot to him and he needed to read that right now. That my guidance and help during the time he was in my classroom helped shape him into the man he is becoming today. I was moved to tears. All this time, I was fighting back the disappointment in where my occupational status is right now and then the timing of his words came to remind me that I am seeing the blossoming and the fruiting of the seeds I helped plant years ago. If that’s not manifestation, I don’t know what is. His well-being and happiness mattered to me then and they matter to me today. I really wanted to help as best as I knew how all those years ago because I know more than ever that he had a lot of odds stacked against him on so many levels. To know something I said or did or listened to while he worked out a problem or struggled with an essay stuck inside him and helped him manifest a life he is proud of matters to me more than I can fully express in this post.
Our text conversation today reminded me that manifestation of dreams is not a singular act, nor is it an immediate return. Life isn’t a Hollywood movie where the story neatly plays out in one hour and fifty two minutes complete with ending credits. Aladdin’s genie doesn’t come out of a bottle and tell us that our wish is his command. Life takes sudden turns and there are bends and forks in the road on our journey. It’s about being engaged in the big and meaningful moments along with the minutiae of our lives and doing what our intuition is prompting us to do in the moment. When we are doing what lights us up, the Universe pays attention. The machinations of manifestation are set into action and life unfolds from there. When I was a teacher, I was also channeling my nurturing energy and treating my students with as much love and care I could muster in the moment. My former student showed me today that although I don’t physically have children of my own, I did what any loving parent would do and gave my all to him because I knew investing in his future would benefit him and his community. Now, I get to see that his life, although it’s not working out how he envisioned it, is working out beautifully.
“All flourishing is mutual,” the biologist and Potawatomi Citizen member Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in her nonfiction book Braiding Sweetgrass. When one being gives and the other humbly receives, miracles abound. My student gave me the gift of sharing his life journey to this point today. I am humbled to know that I am written in some of his story’s pages. What I once perceived as my life sprinkled with regrets, I now see as a life filled with blessings, wisdom, love, and use of my skills to help another flourish and become more of the man he struggled to be as a youth. Sometimes, we don’t get what we think we want in this life, we get what we need to grow and develop and become more of ourselves. It is up to us to humbly receive what is presented to us and create our lives from there.