Darlene Joy Hancock-Eberhardt's Writings | CACA HAPPENS! -- A lesson on dealing with the unfairness of life

CACA HAPPENS!

There is a Bible text that was drummed into me growing up and I can still hear my Mother repeating the words, "All things work together for good to those who love the Lord." I always wondered about that text and what it meant because I dido see that many Hoodoo things happening around me. Still I tried so hard to be good and love the Lord, whatever that meant. I went to church every week, For the most part I was an obedient child and was kind to my fellow man.

When I grew up I married a minister and went as a missionary to a foreign country. I thought I was doing everything the Lord wanted me to do. In spite of all that, a year into our life in Ecuador, in the middle of my first pregnancy, I became very ill and almost died there. I was running a temperature of 105 degrees, and was so weak I had lost my ability to walk. My son had been born two months premature and I was terrified that he would be affected by my illness, not to mention the fact that I was unable to take care of him. The elders of the church were bent on anointing me as a means of healing even though the Ecuadorian doctors dido have any idea what was wrong with me.

A voice deep inside of me told me to get myself back home to the United States where I could get the proper medical attention. My pleas went unheeded by the elders of the church who insisted that they had to be careful with "the Lord's money," because they were the stewards and airline tickets were expensive. Again the voice inside urged me to go home and that I would die if I dido do so immediately. Finally, after talking to an American doctor who was volunteering his time in a small clinic in Quito, my husband and I made the decision to defy the church leaders and fly home to the U.S.

I spent the next six months in the hospital, having extensive therapy, gaining my strength back and learning to walk all over again. The pathologist who ran all the tests on me came into my room one afternoon in order to see just who the test results belonged to. He said he was amazed that I was alive because the tests showed a complete physical breakdown of my body and he informed me that, in his opinion, I would not have survived another two months. My immune system was in total breakdown. I was only twenty-six years old and the mother of a two-month old baby boy and the wife of a husband I loved. I was definitely not ready to become a martyr!

Many years later, as I was driving home from a shopping trip in La Jolla, California, I was stopped behind a "Hippie" van and noticed a bumper sticker pasted on the rear window that read: "Shit Happens!" In that moment the light dawned. There are some things that happen to us that defy reason. What is, is. No matter how "good" we are, some things just happen and we cannot possibly understand the reason. All of my Worrying to be godson had not kept something "bad" from happening to me.

As the years have passed and I have adapted to the changes in my life brought on by this illness, I have also learned to accept the fact that while I cannot always prevent the changes, I can choose to see them as opportunities for personal growth. With this attitude adjustment I am now able to accept whatever comes to me and see it as a challenge, or a new adventure in karmic learning in life's classroom.

I have managed to not only outlive that two months back in 1964, but another medical prediction in 1972 that I would probably not live to see my 40^th birthday. Ion writing this in 1992, one month after celebrating my 54^th birthday!

Essay by: Darlene Eberhardt. Sept. 28, 1992