Serendipity: The Doors I Never Expected to Open

I think about serendipity a lot.

The idea that sometimes something happens by chance, something you never planned for, and somehow it changes the direction of your life.

I had a stroke.

Yes, it sucked.

There is no beautiful way to package that part of my story. I was five months pregnant. My life changed in an instant, and there were things I had planned for my future that I eventually had to accept were never going to happen.

Before my stroke, we were building a dayhome. I had plans for it. I could picture what my life was going to look like.

After my stroke, I had to make peace with the fact that because of my new limitations, that door had closed.

That was hard.

But something strange kept happening.

Every time one door closed, another one seemed to open.

Not always right away. Not always in some big, obvious way. Sometimes it was something so random that I wouldn't understand its importance until much later.

One of the first times happened when my son was still an infant.

I was taking him for his vaccinations. At the time, I was dealing with diplopia, or double vision, after my stroke. I wore an eye patch just so I could function.

There was another woman there with her daughter. She noticed my eye patch and told me about the clinic she worked at. She suggested I make an appointment.

So I did.

They put prisms in my glasses.

And I could see.

I could see!

Something as ordinary as taking my baby for his shots led to a chance encounter with someone who changed my life.

What if she hadn't been there that day?

What if she hadn't said anything?

What if I hadn't listened?

Years later, it happened again.

I was randomly scrolling Facebook. Nothing exciting. Just scrolling.

And I came across the Voice of Albertans with Disabilities.

At that point, I had been fighting for CPP Disability for six years.

Six years.

I contacted VAD, and that decision changed the direction of my life again.

After years of fighting, I was finally approved for CPP Disability.

But VAD ended up giving me something much bigger than a benefit approval.

It gave me Margot.

Margot Brunner became my guardian angel.

She encouraged me to join the VAD board. At the time, I don't think I fully understood what she was giving me.

She gave me my voice back.

My stroke affected my speech. It affected my confidence. It changed the way I saw myself and what I thought I was capable of doing.

Margot saw something in me that maybe I couldn't see yet.

And slowly, I started seeing it too.

I started advocating. I started speaking up. I started realizing that everything I had learned from fighting through these systems could actually be used to help someone else.

That realization opened doors I never would have imagined.

I was awarded a scholarship through Leadership Wood Buffalo.

I became President of the Voice of Albertans with Disabilities.

I even ran for municipal council.

If you had told the woman sitting there with an eye patch after her stroke that this was where her life was going, I don't know that she would have believed you.

None of this means I am grateful that I had a stroke.

I'm not.

There are things it took from me that I would take back in a heartbeat.

I don't believe everything happens for a reason. Sometimes awful things happen, and there isn't a neat explanation for them.

What I do believe is that something difficult happening doesn't mean that nothing good can come afterward.

Advocacy has become a huge part of my life, but it isn't always easy.

One of the hardest things for me is knowing that I can't help everyone.

I wish I could.

When someone reaches out because they're struggling and I can't fix it for them, I carry that with me. But I'm learning that helping someone doesn't always mean solving their problem.

Sometimes helping means giving someone information they didn't have before.

Sometimes it means showing them where to look.

Sometimes it simply means making sure they know someone sees them.

That is part of why I created Accessible Compass.

I know what it feels like to need help and not know where to find it. I also know how much one piece of information, one organization or one person can change the direction of someone's life.

A woman in a waiting room helped me see again.

A random Facebook post helped me finally receive a benefit I had fought six years for.

A woman named Margot helped me find my voice.

And all of those seemingly small moments helped lead me here.

Maybe Accessible Compass can be one of those moments for somebody else.

Maybe someone will be sitting at home one night, exhausted from fighting a system they don't understand, and stumble across something here that points them in the right direction.

Maybe that becomes their open door.

My stroke took my life in a direction I never expected. There were doors that closed because of it, and I had to grieve them.

But I've learned not to stare at a closed door for so long that I miss the one that just opened beside it.

Sometimes the life you planned isn't the life you end up living.

That doesn't mean there isn't another path waiting for you.

There is opportunity out there.

You just have to be willing to see it. (Even with double vision:)