The Bludgeonings of Chance

When my son was four years old, we conspired to get him a puppy for Christmas. Daniel was a beautiful towheaded boy with coal black eyes. He was quirky and precocious. This was during the infamous "Blizzard of '82" in Denver. We had all somehow braved the terrifying driving conditions to gather at my parents' house. My father-in-law, who lived across the street from my parents, dug a path through the snow so we could cross visit. The snow was shoulder high on either side of the trench he created. So we had a very white and cozy Christmas, even though Christmas has always been at the bottom of my "favorite holiday" list. This one was special.

Instead of presenting Daniel with his puppy first, we decided it would be fun to wrap up all the puppy accouterments we had purchased and put them under the tree, holding the puppy back until he realized what was going on. We took turns opening presents. When it was his turn, Daniel unwrapped his first gift to find a dog collar and a leash. A look of bewilderment briefly crossed his face, before he held it up, smiled, and said only, "Thank you." He clearly didn't know why he'd been given such a gift, or exactly what it was. When his turn came round again he unwrapped a dog dish. Again, he appeared confused as he turned the dish over in his hands. He said nothing. His turn came around again: squeaky, rubber chew toys. Now he'd had enough. Tears filled his eyes, and he choked up a bit before he said plaintively to anyone who would listen, "Why am I not getting anything decent for Christmas?"

I'd love to give you a warm fuzzy end to the story, but when the warm fuzzy part was brought out, he was still not able to put it all together. He didn't quite get the joke, wondering why his new dog got so many gifts that were addressed to him. But it didn't take him long to fall in love with the black cock-a-poo that he named Amy, after a girl in his preschool class.

We rarely ever saw Daniel cry as he grew up. He was always rather stoic, enduring whatever punishments that came his way quietly, even the occasional spankings we, to our discredit, meted out. But I must tell you about two memorable moments when I saw him cry. The first was not when we chose to give Amy away for what I now see were entirely inadequate reasons, though Amy ended up in a wonderful environment--acreage in the mountains with many animal companions. The first time was two years later, when Daniel was about ten. We were reminiscing about Amy and he began to sob and tell me how much it hurt to lose her. Seeing the pain in this usually stoic boy crushed me. I had no idea he'd been carrying it so deeply and so long. We made an arrangement to visit Amy. It was a marvelous reunion, as Amy went absolutely crazy at the sight of Daniel, and the look of joy on his face as he could see that Amy was happy and well cared for was unforgettable. We were both teary eyed on the drive home from that meeting, and it was clear that Daniel had been greatly comforted.

The next time I saw him cry was years later, when my father died. My father was fortunate enough to die in his sleep, early in the morning, in his own home. It was not unexpected. My mother called me when she found him, and I rushed over. We called the rest of the family, all of whom soon arrived. Daniel was twenty-four then. He went into a room by himself and cried so hard and soulfully that it broke further our already broken hearts.

How many packages have you opened in your life that left you in shear bewilderment? How many things have come your way that simply didn't make sense? "Why am I not getting anything decent in life?" There are times when the puppy finally arrives and appears to make sense of everything else. Our pattern-seeking brains then assure us, "Aha, that's why those things happened . . . to prepare me for . . ." But then the puppy's taken away, grandfather dies, and you are again left wondering, "Is this all meaningless, or am I being prepared for something else?"

I would answer yes to both questions. You and I have no control over things that just happen: unexpected turns of fate, deaths, the economy and so many other things. Some see the hand of God in everything. I do not, but I do believe that we were so created that we can take whatever happens and use it to prepare for whatever happens next; that we can infuse nearly everything that happens to us with meaning; perhaps not immediately, not when we're opening the damn chew toys and dog dishes, perhaps not even when the puppy arrives. But we have a genius for this. We derive meaning from things that may have no meaning in themselves. It is a gift. We despair when we lose sight of this, concluding that there is finally no meaning to be made.  And truly, sometimes there is not. Sometimes there is "nothing for it." Sometimes a blow is final, or barely sustained, and we limp forward wondering what the hell happened. And maybe we go on, perpetually limping and trying to fit the blow into some pattern, to infuse it with meaning. We won't always succeed. Sometimes all we can do is sigh, shake our heads, and accept that we have no answers.

Those who believe in a personal God who controls everything can resort to the comforting thought: "Maybe I can't understand this, but I know God has a plan, and I trust him." This is a source of great strength and hope for some. But there are some tragedies that, if one hopes to keep believing this, he must swallow hard and force feed that faith to himself. Because the proposition is either true, false, or only partly true. I don't claim to know which it is. At most I believe it to be a partial truth. I have read too much history, I've seen too many things in life to adopt that belief with integrity, though I once did. Personally, I view everything, both weal and woe, whatever doesn't kill me, as part of an ongoing narrative, a gold mine of material to think about, derive lessons from, and write about. And it is my task to infuse as much of it as I can with metaphorical puppies of some kind, even though I know they will eventually be given away, or die. Even so, unlike Macbeth, I do not believe that "Life . . .is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," though that is certainly what Macbeth made of his life. I will not let that be my epitaph.

On the other hand . . . a man approached me at Trader Joe's last Saturday. He asked me how long I'd been working there. He looked at my name tag and asked if I'm the Theodore T. Patterson who writes the blog. I was incredulous. "Why do you want to know?" I asked, wondering what was up. He stuck out his hand and said, "Just wanted you to know that it meant a lot to me. Thanks and keep writing." I asked him how he even found the blog, much less tracked me down. He said, "I don't remember." It connected me back to other "synchronicities" in my history that gave me the conviction that I should be writing, writing whether I do it well or poorly. God's plan? My own search for meaning? Something else altogether or in between? I don't know which.