Worst Case Scenario Woman - Cape Not Included

I believe in fate. I say that now, but this statement is a lifetime in the making. I’m a pessimist. I’m a realist. There is a logical explanation for everything, you see, and I won’t jump on your “can’t prove it but if you say so then I’m on board” bandwagon. My glass is perpetually half-empty, sorry. I took my rose colored glasses off the year the kids in 5th grade started calling me “Dino” – as in Fred Flintstone’s pet dinosaur. I run my life by Murphy’s Law. If it’s bad, it’s gonna happen to me. Just wait and see. My daughter told me once, “Mom, seriously, if you were a super-hero, your name would be ‘Worst Case Scenario Woman’.” I will be the one who knows exactly where the exits on the plane are located. It’s gonna crash if I’m on it. I will take notes when they make you do the lifeboat drill on the cruise ship. Remember the Titanic? If you’re ever held hostage, stand by me. Chances are I have an energy bar, a drink, some floss, lotion, and some flip flops in my purse. We could use it all to overtake the bad guys, MacGyver style. My theory on decision making: this might be the last decision you ever get to make, so make it count, think it through, obsess a little…knock yourself out. My motto: prepare for the worst – anything better will be a nice surprise.

So, why didn’t I know that Chynna was headed for impending disaster? Why didn’t I prepare for this tragedy, my own personal apocalypse of the past year? Shouldn’t I have been ready with a solution? Shouldn’t I have had some magic bean in my purse that I could throw into the operating room? Shouldn’t I have known not to get too attached 17 years ago when she entered my life? Shouldn’t I have sensed that tragedy was lurking behind every corner? So, I start thinking that something went horribly wrong. I start thinking that she wasn’t always meant to just disappear one day. I start realizing that this whole thing was really, really weird – really, really sudden – really, really spookily, eerily strange. It begins to feel like the course of her life, of all our lives, was changed with one abrupt swish of an other-worldly paintbrush. My Mona Lisa had a brilliant smile, but one day I woke up and it wasn’t there anymore. In a textbook worst case scenario situation, I somehow failed to brace for this fall. Perhaps, this was not her destiny after all.

Then, what happened? This is the part where my belief in fate surfaced. This is where I start thinking that maybe I can’t see the future. This is where I realize that CBS is not going to call me to replace Patricia Arquette in “Medium” anytime soon. I can’t talk to pets. The whole Magic 8 Ball thing doesn’t really work. I’m not whispering in Jennifer Love-Hewitt’s ear. I really don’t know anything! I’ve been sitting here scolding and tsk-ing everyone for over 40 years (odd, when I’ve told everyone I’m turning 37 this year??) when life has been passing me by! In preparation for whatever cataclysmic event was on my horizon, I’ve missed the proverbial rose garden….I may have even squandered the best season of my most precious rose…Chynna. I know now. I get it. This was not an accident. I don’t know how it’s going to all pan out yet, but something much bigger is coming. I hope she knows I never intended to waste our best years. I hope she knows that I will turn over a new leaf, start taking some deep breaths, brace for the good instead of the bad, and practice just letting go. I hope she understands that I never meant to suppress her eternal optimism. I hope she sees that, when I look back now, I realize that I learned everything I really, truly needed to know from her. There was a reason for all of this. I hope she is smiling now, knowing that she has restored my belief in fate.

And so, this week we commemorate 11 months without Chynna, our most beautiful rose.