A New Universe

My paternal grandmother, Vivien, was a petite, blond, quintessential English lady and an astute businesswoman. She was the perfect grandmother as far as I, her first grandchild, was concerned. She had stocks of my favorite fondant mini cakes and always made meals for at least 30 people even when there were only 6 of us for dinner. Her chicken soup pot was bottomless and my father always enjoyed teasing her that there were at least 15 potatoes for each person. She took me to the ballet and out to restaurants for lunch. She was generous to a fault. She loved beautiful things and she saw the best in people. Her response to a difficult situation was always “As one door closes three open.” and I have carried that mantra with me however clichéd it sounds.

As I have been trying to make sense of the last five months of Jonny’s illness, brain surgery and recovery it has occurred to me how pieces of our family life seemed unwittingly to have fallen into place just in time for Jonny’s trigeminal neuralgia to roar into action.
The day before Jonny went for his very first appointment at Johns Hopkins, I had finished my last day at work. I had also pulled out of a number of volunteer commitments, urged on by a gut feeling that I might not be able to follow through with them in the months to come. I closed all my doors (albeit unwittingly) and was able to devote my time completely to Jonny’s escalating nightmare and our sons’ needs.

In January, as Jonny’s pain began to show clear evidence of subsiding and his strength grew, I became more aware of those closed doors. With the prospect of Jonny going back to work, (another closing door) my eye was drawn to an article on Huffington Post by Russell Bishop an educational psychologist and coach who had written a piece entitled “Soul-Talk: WhatHappens when G-d Closes a Door?”

He suggests that actually it’s not just new doors that open “Whenever G-d closes a door, he opens a universe.” In the last few weeks with my grandmother’s words ringing in my ears and Dr. Bishop’s adaptation, I have indeed found a door (although in this case perhaps technically it is a window) opening into a new universe –the blogosphere. With your encouragement and feedback I have taken the plunge into a whole new world and the result is the blog you are reading now. Welcome to Brainstorm!

Please comment on anything that resonates with you and feel free to forward the link to my blog, to anyone you think might enjoy it. The link is  http://gillycannon.blogspot.com . Looking forward to hearing from you.

Gilly