Catching Up - Two Weeks Ago

Two weeks ago I took advantage of my retirement AGAIN by driving to Louisville KY. My mission was to spend Saturday evening babysitting for three wonderful grandchildren while my daughter, Sarah, and her husband attended an eighties party.

Now, is there any distance that anyone would hesitate to travel to spend some time with these wonderful, beautiful children?

You can see how beautiful they are but would you believe they're just as good and sweet as they are beautiful!

How lucky is it that I have the freedom to drop everything, jump into a car that I love, and go wherever I want. I have to credit that freedom to two things: Retirement because when I worked, my schedule included most Saturdays and it was next to impossible to ever get one off. And my husband, who's very fine with me doing the things that he knows I love to do.

I had another impetus for going besides the babysitting too. One evening prior to that weekend Sarah called and asked me if I knew who Frankie Valli was. I said, sure - Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Then she told me that she had two great tickets for his concert in Louisville Sunday night and since, Mr. Right had to work early on Monday, she would go with me if I wanted to go. Wow! Seeing Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and spending an evening with my daughter! Does it get any better that that?

So I headed for Louisville and got there in time to distract the kids a little while their parents prepared to step back a few decades and become teenagers of the eighties. I think they did a good job too. What do you think?

They went to their party, had a great time, and I spent the night in their guest room in their finished basement. In the morning, I had the space to myself to Shred and that afternoon Sarah, Trey, and I took a very pleasant 3 mile walk so I was able to keep up with my Shrinkvivor Disciplines.

Sunday evening while Sarah and I got ready for the concert, Mike took the kids to the store for some groceries. Right after they returned, Sarah came downstairs and told me she didn't think we'd be able to go. This beautiful girl had a problem.

When they were at the store, Mike noticed that there was something wrong with her eye and when I saw it, I was a little shaken. It was something I'd never seen before. It looked like the tissue from beneath her eyelid was bulging out into a bubble in the corner of her eye.

Sarah called her pediatrician who researched it and couldn't find anything and suggested it could wait until Monday. Sarah paused for maybe a heartbeat before she and Mike decided she should go to a Pediatric Urgent Care Center. We weren't there very long before I realized how fortunate it was that she and Mike made that decision because that small bubble was growing. Before the evening was over it covered the entire corner of her eye right up to the iris. And the most alarming thing was that personnel from the Pediatric Urgent Care Center were so amazed by what they saw. No one had ever seen anything like it and one person came in with no other purpose than to see what everyone was talking about! There's nothing reassuring about that kind of reaction from professionals who you like to believe have seen everything.

They consulted with an Ophthalmologist who HAD heard of such a thing and prescribed an antibiotic ointment. We went home relieved that someone seemed to know something about this condition and finally, went to bed. Thoughts of Frankie Valli were far behind.

Especially since the next morning, when we got up, Mary's eye looked so normal that if you weren't aware that there had been a problem you wouldn't notice anything.

She saw the Ophthalmologist the next day and he diagnosed a chalazion which is an inflamed gland at the rim of the eyelids which is responsible for the supply of the oily substance that prevents evaporation of the eye's tear film. There are approximately 50 glands on the upper eyelids and 25 glands on the lower eyelids and one of Mary's had become inflamed and swelled so much that the lining of her eyelid really did bulge out into the corner of her eye.

The only important thing was the miracle we witnessed that morning when Mary got up. Our fervent prayers were answered and that was all that mattered.

But later I mused about the sequence of events that kept anyone from using those concert tickets. They were originally purchased by Mike's parents who were unable to use them due to a death in the family. There's no doubt in my mind that there was a reason why those tickets weren't to be used. I'm sure we'll never know what it was but, in my heart of hearts, I know there was a reason.

And I'm good with that. I'm one of those people who believe that things happen for a reason and I don't have to know what it is. I just know that it was the way it had to be and there's a lot of peace in that.

And who knows? Maybe Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons will come to Chicago and Mr. Right and I can go. Even if he says he's not that keen on them, he could still go and I could just tell him there's a reason for everything. Maybe he'd even become a fan after all these years and quit groaning every time one of their songs comes on the CD player in the car.