life happens when you're not looking

today i got stung on the very tip of my finger by an imaginary bee. i say imaginary because i never saw it. all of a sudden, my finger just began to burn with paralyzing intensity. i headed straight to the freezer and pulled out an ice pack. i stood there wincing in pain as i iced my finger, only pulling it away periodically to see if the stinger had worked its way out yet. eventually it did, and the swelling came down and the burning ceased, but it got me thinking...

how is it that a little bee sting can send me over the edge with pain, but the gallbladder attacks never phased me? it was months before i finally saw a doctor and found out that i needed emergency surgery to remove it. how is that my finger bothered me more than the cartwheels i did on the beach with a broken collarbone? i went on a mission trip for a whole week after my car accident before seeing a doctor and realizing that my clavicle had broken in half.

it's ironic that the imaginary bee got me as i was fearfully brushing away a spider web on my porch. i stared at the spider with such intention, scared to death that it would get to me before i got the web cleared from my pathway. that spider didn't get me, but something else did. it's like i was having a staring competition with that spider and she sent in the bee as a pinch hitter.

it happens all the time. we focus so intently on the thing we fear that we are unaware of other surrounding dangers, as if we're playing chicken with a car in oncoming traffic, but miss the semi that t-bones you from the right.

my grandma has been receiving a lot of phone calls since grandpa passed away a couple months ago. they ask for "alfred" and she defiantly responds with, "he's not available right now, can i take a message?". when i was in ohio she received one of these disturbing calls and the caller id read "kingston". i did a reverse search with the phone number, and sure enough it was from kingston, jamaica. dad called the number back, but couldn't get anyone on the other end to speak sensibly.

grandma called her credit card company this morning as a result of a phone call when someone knew the last 4 digits of her card number and found out that someone had made fraudulent charges on her card. those charges were made in jamaica. absolute craziness.

because of all of the stress she's felt with all of the phone calls and credit card business, she forgot to make her weekly call on sunday to her cousin doris, who has been in the hospital for several weeks. after everything was dealt with about the charges, she dialed the hospital. the nurse on the other end of the line politely told her that doris was not longer at the hospital. grandma explained that she was a relative and asked where she had gone. "...she passed away on wednesday."

it's that imaginary bee stinging my finger,
that semi truck slamming into the side of your car.

"life happens when you're not looking."
that's what they say...