#188 Hand of cards
I don’t panic easily. When Janne and I made a trip to Paris in 2008, she got very sick with fever the day after we arrived. I cooked up a plan in my head to try to get her medicines and food for the few days she was bedridden. It worked.
As I heard yesterday in an interview, in life you are dealt with a set of cards. Sometimes it’s not a great hand, but you have to make the best you of what you have.
When Janne was diagnosed, I took the decision on the spot to drive to Norway, pack everything in the car and drive back two nights after. I would talk with my manager and landlord to let them know. Janne had to go into her first chemo less than a week later and she didn’t want to be alone. The plan worked for that week.
Besides being heartbroken, we never really complained about our situation. Janne told me once that she didn’t really have a hard life. If this was it, at least she had lived well. As for me, the point was to be present and with her as much as possible. And the boys had to know. Even if our hand of cards was bad, we just had to make the best out of it.
Janne would have asked yesterday, “what’s wrong with Paris?” During our first night here, Daniel got a bad case of food poisoning. Reacting at 4 a.m. cleaning up and making sure that Daniel was Ok was a challenge. I didn’t panic. Daniel spent the whole day in bed after we went to a local pharmacy. We lost our timed ticket slots for the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, but Daniel and Trevor were okay with that.
Yesterday, Daniel woke up better. We still went to see the Eiffel Tower from the outside. Then we went to the Jardin Des Plantes to see fossils, live animals and just walk around. The highlight of the day was when a murder of crows came to eat the fallen crumbles from our fresh croissants. They ended up getting some more when Daniel and I had fun feeding them.
We had a blast the rest of the day. If I can pass on one learning to the boys is to make the best of their hand. Sometimes it will be dark and sad and will seem unfair, but the difference is what we make out of it. After all, we have only one chance to play.
