Expect the Unexpected

By Sondra Forsyth

When my daughter was turning 17, right after my messy divorce and the sale of the house she had grown up in, a lucrative freelance writing assignment I had been counting on fell through when the publication folded. We were living in a pricey rented apartment and I was getting ready to pay my son’s college tuition. My ex wasn’t going to chip in at all for any of that. Although I tried to keep my worry from my daughter, she picked up on it and said, “Do things ever settle down, or is this life?”

It was a laugh or cry moment, and I ended up laughing through my tears. “You’re young,” I said, “but you’ve got the picture. Always expect the unexpected. Even so, remember that not all surprises are bad ones. Sometimes what you least expect can turn out to be a blessing.”

She then listened patiently while I expounded about Robert Burns’ poem with the line “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry,” explaining that Burns wrote the poem after accidentally plowing over the winter nest of a mouse.

When I finally drew a breath, she said, “OK, yes, I get it. But tell me about the good surprises.”

At that moment, steeped as I was in concern about finances and the welfare of my precious offspring and myself, I had to take a moment to come up with a response. Yet when I did, I felt a healing process begin. I told her about the time I had asked for a freelance assignment but got a terrific job offer instead. I told her other examples of good surprises as well, and I ended with the best one of all. Because of a medical issue, I was not supposed to be able to get pregnant with a second child and carry the baby to term. But I did, against all odds, and she was that baby. I had never given her the details about that situation before. By then we were both crying happy tears.

Ever since then, “Things never settle down” has been our motto. By now she’s grown up and married and the mother of my two wonderful grandsons, but the bond we shared that day when she was 17 has only become stronger. The best part is that she is now the one who often invokes our motto for my sake. Just the other day, when an unforeseen challenge came my way, I texted her and she responded with wisdom, encouragement – and our motto.

In this age of information overload and social media, we are all made aware on a daily basis of the unanticipated upheavals in the lives of those close to us and in the world in general. The possibility, in fact the probability, of unpleasant surprises is always with us. Still, the same is true of pleasant surprises. In the interest of mental health and carrying on with excitement about what the future might hold, I believe we all need to think about the dire conclusion of Burns’ poem to the unfortunate mouse whose shelter was destroyed:

“Still you are blessed, compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!^[ “

What an anxiety-riddled and melancholy view of life! Burns was a mere 26 years old when he wrote the poem and he died an untimely death at 37 following a botched dental extraction, so perhaps he did have premonitions of doom. For me, though, I choose to believe that the mouse soldiered on, rebuilding her winter haven, just as I went on after the upsets in my life when my daughter and I first nailed our motto, “Things never settle down”. To all of you facing truly serious problems now, I send loving and healing thoughts even if I don’t know you. As for me, I plan to wake up tomorrow expecting that the unexpected could be good news I have never yet even imagined for myself and for those I love.

Sondra Forsyth is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of thirdAGE.com.