Last time I wrote, I meditated on the idea of pronoia, the idea that the world is conspiring to support you. I love this concept, and I talked about a couple of small ways the universe was looking out for me in my life right now.
But pronoia can be harder when you think about the big things. Trauma, tragedy. I still think it has the power to apply, but I don’t say that to discount the horrible things that happen in the world and the way they are often deeply unfair and unjust.
I don’t see everything as sunshine as rainbows. (Though, I do love rainbows.) Shit happens, and life sucks sometimes.
Like this:
Two years ago, I lost my Dad.
He was 63, and in good health. He died in a motorcycle accident while he was on a road trip with his brother and friend. A car was involved in the accident, but wasn’t the cause. Nor was Dad.
We found out later, based on the report from the medical examiner, that they think a bird flew in his face while he was riding, and he lost control of his bike.
You can’t make this stuff up.
I got the call about his death an hour before I was supposed to head out of the school building for spring break. It had been an especially heinous spring, and I desperately needed that week off to try to store up enough energy to survive ‘til the end of the year.
But instead of a joyful saunter out of the building, with a slew of of midday naps and mindless TV ahead of me, I instead had to run to the school office, try not to lose it, and explain why I was leaving before the final bell.
I flew back to my childhood home in the midwest, and the following week was a blur. But what was funny was that the blur was equal parts sad and beautiful.
My best friend came to stay with me for the week, and told me I could ask anything of her. I asked her to make an appointment for me to get my hair cut because I’d missed my regular one in the haze of booking last-minute flights. It was so helpful to feel normal for an hour, and know she was there.
My mother and brothers and I planned a funeral almost seamlessly. It was easy to know what Dad would have wanted, and we all knew, intuitively, what to push for and what to let go of as we worked together.
My coparent brought our kiddo and stayed near my parent’s house for the week, so he could be the primary parent while I was scrambling with my family to plan funeral arrangements. We have a good relationship, but I was still touched that he took the week off to support our daughter, and also me, during this rough time.
I saw all of my cousins, every single one, at the funeral. They flew in from all over the country. We hadn’t all been together in years, but I was so touched that they made it, with all of their spouses and young kids of their own.
While in the receiving line at the church before the service, I could not BELIEVE the humans from the past who showed up to pay their respects. A couple of teacher from my high school came. I hadn’t been especially close to either of them, but they’d been in touch with Dad recently, since he drove a school bus in the last couple years of his life. Many of Dad’s high school and college friends came, and it had been years since I’d seen these people! Some of my own high school classmates came—I hadn’t reached out, they’d just heard through the grapevine and showed up. It was amazing to see so many people and know they were sharing in our sadness and there to support us.
Back in my own home of VT, I reached out to my friends and asked if they could just put some food in my fridge for when I returned. I came back knowing I didn’t need to grocery shop, and it was a huge weight off my shoulders.
Now, I’m not saying that Dad’s death was some tool that the universe was using to teach me some valuable lessons about love, community, and the meaning of life. But I do think that being able to notice the good in the terrible is an element of pronoia that served me well in this hard time:
That support from my community was huge. I almost never call on it, because I’m a fiercely independent lady, but when I needed my people, they showed up.
Knowing that Dad passed doing something he loved with people whose company he enjoyed gave me immense comfort.
Understanding that he’d never suffer a serious illness (something I, honestly, worried about because of his abiding love of cigar-smoking), was a silver lining.
He always said, “When it’s your time, it’s your time,” and I knew, always, that he was at peace with the idea of going when your number’s up.
And after his death, I reevaluated some parts of my life, including my career path. I wouldn’t have done this if I hadn’t been forced to confront some hard realities about how you don’t always get the full life you plan for.
In the last few years of his life, Dad semi-retired, quitting his full-time corporate job to drive a school bus part time and teach at community college. He was happy, unstressed, and had many hours to devote to his woodshop, which he adored.
On the other hand, he also never got to spend the retirement money he’d spent a long, stressful career amassing.
His death was one of the catalysts for quitting my job, learning to be ok with earning less money for awhile in a transition, and deciding to explore a work situation that made me happier than what I’d been doing.
I miss him a lot, but I know he’s with me in some way—I always imagine he’s checking in when I see a cardinal (he was a redhead). I can’t help but feeling that despite the horror of losing him tragically, in the end, things worked out ok and I’m grateful that I was able to construct some meaning and comfort out of his early death.
On the flip side, I think a lot about all the privilege I live with that allowed this tragic event to resolve with some grace. Dad had life insurance to cover the funeral. I have a mostly-intact family who gets along enough to pull together in hard times. I had the means to travel when I needed to, in a rush. Had some of those things been out of place, seeing the silver linings would be much harder. Is pronoia only for the privileged?
What about you? In the midst of heartache, tragedy, or trauma, have you been able to find silver linings? Do you think the universe can still be working for you, even when things seem super rough? What good things have come out of the bad for you? What makes a mindset of pronoia easier, or harder?