Blessing In Disguise

Recent family events have almost paralleled the ancient Chinese folktale of the lost horse.

The tale goes as follows:

A man who lived on the northern frontier of China was skilled in interpreting events.

One day, for no reason, his horse ran away to the nomads across the border. Everyone tried to console him, but his father said, "What makes you so sure this isn't a blessing?"

Some months later his horse returned, bringing a splendid nomad stallion. Everyone congratulated him, but his father said, "What makes you so sure this isn't a disaster?"

Their household was richer by a fine horse, which his son loved to ride. One day he fell and broke his hip. Everyone tried to console him, but his father said, "What makes you so sure this isn't a blessing?"

A year later the nomads came in force across the border, and every able-bodied man took his bow and went into battle. The Chinese frontiersmen lost nine of every ten men.

Only because the son was lame did the father and son survive to take care of each other.

Truly, blessing turns to disaster, and disaster to blessing: the changes have no end, nor can the mystery be fathomed.

Our disaster was that Neil broke his foot. And this followed his being told by his boss that things were slow, and as such, he didn't know how much longer he could keep Neil on.

Now that was not good.

And it got even worse.

Because Neil's foot had not been healing properly, he was scheduled to have surgery on it Friday.

But that had to be delayed because the pre-op tests revealed that Neil had a left bundle branch block, which he already knew that he had. But because it was a heart condition, the surgery could not proceed until Neil had a stress test and received the cardiologist's blessing to go ahead with the surgery.

Neil had the stress test Monday. Some abnormalities showed up. They could have been merely artifacts from the testing, or they could have been something more severe ~ blockages.

An angiogram was scheduled for Tuesday ~ yesterday ~ to determine what those anomalies actually were.

No sooner had I walked in through the door at 2:30 yesterday afternoon, I heard the phone ring. I did not even have time to clean up the massive pet accidents that I encountered in the library.

It was Neil on his cell phone, calling from the hospital.

He called to tell me that the angiogram found that he had four blockages and that he was scheduled for open-heart surgery ~ a quadruple bypass ~ for the very next day!

Now thinking back to the misfortune of Neil having broken his foot last month, it was now obvious that this disaster was a blessing in disguise.

If Neil had not broken his foot and had the pre-op diagnostic tests, no one who have known that he was a walking time bomb until it was too late. That wretched accident had actually alerted him of a far more serious and life-threatening condition.

So, if the broken foot turned out to be a blessing in disguise, what about the discovery of Neil's blockages and the ensuing surgery to correct them?

Could this perhaps be an opportunity to start anew as Neil views it to be?

Only time will tell how this contemporary retelling of a classic Chinese folktale plays out.