Why We Are Here
Seventy-eight years ago, the great grandmother—a slip of a girl in a dark cape dress—floated on her back in the middle of a wide green lake to keep from drowning, and that is why we are here.
Sixty-seven years ago, her husband—on a hunting trip out West—threw down a white sandwich wrapper and was mistaken for a deer. His buddy’s bullet punched through one calf muscle and obliterated the next. If it had hit a vital organ, her husband would not have fathered my father-in-law, and my father-in-law would not have fathered my husband, and we would not be here.
Forty-two years ago, my mother-in-law had a caesarean section after twenty-four hours of labor, and that is why my husband is here.
Thirty-five years ago, my mother had a caesarean section, or I would not be here.
Seven years ago, my husband had an emergency brain surgery. Because his life was saved, two years later our youngest daughter was conceived, and that is why she is here.
Two years ago, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law opened their arms to another mother’s child, and that is why she is here.
Later, hiking by the lake to banish cabin fever, we could see a delta of white cracks splintering across the ice. We could hear the subterranean chorus as the tension gave way.
Fishermen had set up orange and red huts on the thawing acres. They perched on lawn chairs, lines dangling, sun like fool’s gold splashed across the frozen lake.
Sometimes life feels like those fishermen, waiting for either a crack or a catch, and yet we continue telling stories and singing hymns and sipping coffee and taking walks across the water because we know the generations upon generations who have walked before us so that we could be here.
Look back at all the miracles that have accumulated for your very existence and then take a moment to ask yourself Why am I here?