Life Has a Sea of Challenges

Considering how we should perceive the world around us, I think perspective is sometimes more important than the events themselves. Something can happen to us, but it’s our choice to decide how we’re going to let it affect us. We have a choice to either let something drag us down, buoy us up, change our path in life, or remain unaffected.

When we can make positive things come out of bad news we know we’re really getting a grip. Sometimes you just have to let it go, like water off the back of a duck, and carry on.

(photo credit: Google)

Then there’s my wife, Sonja E. Wood of Nova Scotia, about whom I think most people claim no true understanding. As I said in the last installment, she was ripped in half and put back together again, and despite the reality of now being paralyzed from the waist down, she shot out of the rehab centre like a vivacious cosmonaut, leaving so many concerns behind and they just fall back to earth unnoticed…

I confess, Sonja was already somebody ‘on a mission’ before her accident happened; in fact, already a force to be considered. In one instance, she found herself living in an apartment in Wolfville, and all they had was some dry macaroni and a dry heel of bread. Feeling slightly sorry for herself, she watched the evening news and munched back the discouraging dinner, and on came the story of starvation happening in Ethiopia.

The news outlets didn’t cover the story for long, and it was quickly learned that our middle-class TV-viewing audience in Canada did not wish to be subjected to scenes of starving foreigners in their living rooms after supper. The Canadian relief organization sent only one cargo plane of supplies to Ethiopia, and claimed they had done their share. Sonja said we should do more, we can do more.

The year was 1985, and two very notable things were going on: (1) Terry Fox was in the spotlight for his run across Canada, for cancer awareness; (2) Sonja Wood was walking around the Province of Nova Scotia, raising awareness for the famine in Ethiopia. Incidentally, Sonja didn’t know anything about Terry Fox or his run when she made up her mind about setting up her walk. During one of the many interviews she gave at the time one reporter asked her if she was doing this because of Terry Fox, and her reply was an honest one, “Terry who?!”

Sonja, and her sheepdog Sampson completed their walk, and money was sent to Ethiopia, but more important, Sonja got the famine back into the news every time she did another sound byte, and kinda showed them up a bit. They said she couldn’t make it; she wasn’t strong like that; It would take some pile of determination ! Looking back, Sonja was apparently just getting started.

But fate doesn’t arrange for a nice straightforward voyage, and life has a sea of challenges like nature you can’t tame. Three weeks after her walk ended, slightly deflated and coming off the high of being ‘all about the walk’, she was studying music at Acadia and joining a rock band, and all of the sudden her life-changing accident.

Against all odds she bounced back, and became, if anything, bolder. Some believe when you get a second chance at life you come to appreciate every moment like never before. Sonja ‘went to the light’ there she tells of her experience with the afterlife.

She was approaching the typical reassuring glow that many others have claimed is waiting out there for us, and says she heard her mother’s voice telling her something she told her once when just a little girl. They were explaining that grandma had died and had ‘gone to the light’, but when Sonja asked if they could go to the light sometime to see her, was told the words Sonja heard again: “sometimes when people go to the light, they don’t come back.” She turned away from the serene light, and with a gentle calming sensation she remembers falling back to her body. 

But life after the accident was especially challenging. One thing you have to learn is a new kind of patience. Try to make a cup of hot tea and then wheel yourself over to the table without spilling it… and the list is endless. Sonja’s uncle noted this was going to be a particular challenge for his niece, because she was never one to sit still long enough for any moss or mosquito to take advantage of.

To date, this still holds truth, and Sonja Wood has gone on from one cause to another, and always has something cooking on the burner. I will be reporting these stories over time, and will continue to chronicle the indefatigable personality of Ms. Wood as have witnessed it. Join us again, and note that in my next post I am pretty much ready to say: “and now for something completely different.”