Carol-Anne Schneider

Transcript

My father had a saying whenever life became difficult. Life doesn't have to be perfect to be ever so wonderful. I always wanted to believe him. But lying there on the cold bathroom floor, I couldn't. In that moment, there was nothing wonderful about my life. I can still feel the icy towel beneath my cheek, the silence as I caught my breath between sobs. After years of infertility treatment, hoping, praying, it all came down to one devastating phone call. We're sorry, there's nothing more we can do.

This wasn't the life I imagined. I wanted the white picket fence, the kids, the dog, the minivan. I had never felt so broken. But life has a way of interrupting our own heartbreak. Weeks later, I was back in the doctor's office. Only this time with my sister Christine. I squeezed her hand as the doctor delivered the blow. She had terminal liver cancer. She was 35 years old. A wife, a mother, my sister. Suddenly, my heartbreak expanded to include hers. And I became nurse Nancy.

And for the record, nobody should trust me with anything medical. After 60 years, I still read the back of the Tylenol bottle. Truth. But somehow I managed. Hospital visits, school pick-ups, bedtime stories, holding my sister's hand, and holding her children tighter. I couldn't save my sister. All I could do was love her. And as I held her children, I began to discover that maybe motherhood isn't something that you're given. Perhaps it's something you're called to. In her final months, I shared my sister's room in palliative care.

Every day I walked the hospital hallways. One side held new beginnings, the maternity ward. The other side, painful goodbyes. And there I was standing in the middle between loss and love, between who I was and who I was becoming. Christine lived for 9 months after her diagnosis, and then she slipped away. I rallied because her children needed me, and I needed them. Over the next year, something miraculous happened. And I found myself back in that hospital wing. Only this time I wasn't walking towards a painful goodbye.

I was walking towards a joyful hello to meet my newborn miracle son, Thomas. As I couldn't have children of my own, my dear cousin Katherine stepped in. I once thought I would never be a mother, but life has a sense of humor. I became a mom and a very busy auntie, too. There I was loading up my minivan with kids in a car seat. Most days I had my own Brady Bunch. Two women, Christine and Katherine, gave me the gift of motherhood.

And maybe that's the miracle. Not that life gave me a story I could have written. It gave me one I could never have imagined. I thought of my father's words. My life was far from perfect. I'd experienced loss I didn't know I could survive. And I'd also found love I didn't know I had to give. Years went by and life continued to teach me as it does. And there I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror on my 60th birthday and I asked myself three questions.

Who am I? How did I get here and where am I going? And it hit me. Life doesn't have to be perfect to be ever so wonderful. That was the reinvention. My father was never promising me a perfect life. He was reminding me to recognize a meaningful one. That every heartbreak, every goodbye, every turn of events weren't moments that took me away from who I was. They were moments that brought me home to who I am. So let me ask you, who are you?

How did you get here and where are you going? Because life has a way of dividing itself into two parts. The life you imagined and the life that comes after. I'm Carol Ann Simpson Laird. I am my father's daughter. It took me 60 years to finally understand life is not perfect but so far my life has been ever so wonderful. Thank you.

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.