Plans

As I grow older, I have stopped thinking about where I will be in five or ten years, and started going more by month to month. I have an idea of where I’d like to be, but I find I’m always surprised where I am even in a year. My twenties have been nothing but big and small changes. I just started working for a doggy daycare part-time. I love it because I get to be around animals that I adore all day long. But by this time, when I was little, I probably would have said I was going to be a vet, that I would be married, and possibly have children (definitely a couple dogs). However, as they always say, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” I’ve had plenty of surprises in my life: switching my major from Biomedical Science to English, moving to New York to pursue a branding career, and returning back to Texas to write a book are a few of the major ones. If you would have asked me my plans a year before any of those, I had no idea what was coming. 
 

For my grandpa, plans changed in December of 1961. His mother took his dad to King’s Daughter’s Hospital in Temple, Texas because his dad had said that he couldn’t button his pants anymore. Something wasn’t right. After a couple days in the hospital, the doctors diagnosed him with nephritis. There were no kidney transplants or dialysis in those days. The doctors gave him three months. Three years later, he was still alive in the hospital. You can only imagine the seriousness because Grandpa’s dad didn’t believe in insurance. Mickan Motor Company could only exist under my grandpa’s supervision, and it needed to run well. It was, as Grandpa calls it, the biggest change of his life. But he says it now, as he knew it then, his dad had prepared him.

For the next five years, his dad would alternate between hospital stays while grandpa managed both the farm and the shop. Grandpa had always assumed he would work for the farm. In fact, for the seven years that his father was sick, he kept up with the farm work and the garage. He would be at the shop from before sunrise until long after it had set. Soon the shop became more of a priority.

By 1962, grandpa and grandma were already blessed with all four of their children. They also had a surprise in their plans a few years earlier in December of 1958. Grandma was expecting a baby, and went into labor. Grandpa’s dad always did say that Ethel was big enough to have twins. She felt like she was feeling twins, but Dr. Gaddy would say, “One head, one heartbeat; it’s going to be a biggen.”

On December 9^th, Grandpa took Grandma in to the old Georgetown hospital. There were two doctors, Dr. Gaddy and Dr. Benold, and Ethel’s sister Mimi was the nurse. That morning, Grandpa wasn’t allowed anywhere close. He had to wait on the front porch for the report from the nurses. They later came out to tell me that I had a real cute little girl. I thought, “Well good that makes two daughters then.” But after a bunch of talking they finally said, about 30 minutes later you also had a big boy.

The rest of the story is inside the hospital. When they were wheeling Ethel in, Dr. Gaddy still said, “One head, one heartbeat.” And so Cindy was born. Dr. Gaddy started cleaning up and told Mimi to take care of the mother, when Mimi hollered out, “Dr. Gaddy, there’s another one in here!” He said, “Oh my god, get Dr. Benold, we’re going to need some help.” All Ethel hollered out was, “What am I going to do in church?” She was worried about how to hold and keep calm three babies in church. After all, Pam wasn’t even a year old until two days later. Dr. Gaddy said, “If it was my wife, she’d say to hell with church.”

My Grandpa took on all that responsibility without planning to go into that career, yet it gave him work until he retired, and he’s still up at the shop on most days. As quickly as we can make plans, they change. But those little surprises or so-called kinks make all the difference. Now, of course I still plan, but only because I always enjoy a good chuckle.