What if?
I have been asking that question a lot recently and I expect that only time will reveal all the answers. Just over eighteen years ago I was pregnant with my third son, and everything was going well, so well that despite being into my third trimester I agreed to a day out in the lakes. On hindsight not the wisest of things to do, considering the sheer bulk of me but at the time it seemed a good idea.
Right up until that moment when my dog knocked me off of my feet and like a great bouncy ball I rolled helplessly down a bank and landed with a splash in a lake. Mortified, I grasped my husband’s outstretched hand, but as I was wet, the grip didn’t take and instead I found myself falling back into the lake and landing with a rather heavy thump. Whilst my husband cracked jokes about earth quakes I decided to crawl out myself, on all fours, no longer giving a hoot about my dignity. Mud spluttered and soaking wet I walked back to our car, and slept the entire way home. Once home, I checked myself, I had no bruises couldn’t have been as bad as I had thought, just a dent to my pride and with the intention of having the whole incident forgotten I carried on with my daily life. A little over a week later, a routine scan revealed that my baby was well but laying in an almost empty sack.
An emergency specialised scan was booked to measure the fluids around him and the answer was 5ml, I really couldn’t take it in, I mean a teaspoon of amniotic fluids was all that my little one had to keep him safe. What followed was an interrogation, I mean what woman doesn’t notice that she is leaking amniotic fluids, to which I simply replied “Obviously one sitting up to her waist in a lake” although I wasn’t that polite. They decided to admit me, and after a few days monitoring the situation it was decided the safest option was to induce labour. So whilst the rest of the UK prepared for the Solar Eclipse I prepared for labour, with my son arriving safely just over three weeks before his due date and that I suppose should have been the end of my tale.
But you see a few years on the “What ifs?” began. Due to the English education system the cut-off point is August, and all children born after August go into the next school year. A whole year earlier than it should have been my little baby was toddling into reception class, even the other kids noticed how young he was and it was bitter sweet to watch them all looking after him. This continued throughout primary and before I knew it he had started secondary. His friend from across the road was just five weeks younger than him but because he was born after September began, he was a whole class year behind.
As mother I watched him struggling to keep up with kids born sometimes almost a year before him, and again asked “What if I hadn’t been so stupid, what if I’d stayed home that day?” The pattern continued, he started college whilst his friend was focusing on GCSE’s, he didn’t do so great that first year, as the transition from school to college was a hard for him. The second year he did brilliantly, distinctions and merits every time. Again I asked “What if he’d started a year later, with that extra maturity?” But nothing prepared me for the biggest What if, for that moment of standing in his university room, knowing the moment had come to say goodbye, and really not being ready. As we drove back through Wales and into England, my mind cried out with a thousand “What ifs” as I blamed myself yet again.
In that moment of personal torment, I forgot everything that I tell to others, I forgot all about Divine Timing, and simply focused on my sorrow. That was just a little over a week ago, since then I have had numerous conversations with him and heard his joy and excitement, I have seen his happy posts, the societies he has joined, and the new friends he has already made. Yes, I can’t help noticing most of them are nineteen plus, he has only just turned eighteen, but he is used to it. And now I believe time will show a different lot of “What ifs” As the friends he makes now are of this time, the relationships he goes into are of this time, the opportunities that open up to him, are of this time. So the -`what ifs? `- could be based around all the positives that are coming his way as a result of where he currently is, the time line he is currently travelling. Perhaps if he’d come on time, he may have been different, he might have made different choices. Perhaps, despite not arriving on his due date, he did in reality arrive on the day he was fated to be born. As a person he is sum of all the experiences that he has passed through, right from the first weeks he spent in the special care unit, to the care the care the other kids showed, the point of needing to constantly compete with those older than himself. These what ifs we may never know, but it is important in life not to allow yourself to become too weighed down by what ifs, and instead to accept that to everything there is a season, and Divine timing does play an crucial role in our lives, we just sometimes are not aware of it.
