Here’s the deal:

You can never be ready for The Call.

A snapshot of me at any point of any day of my life will show me bolting from One Very Important Meeting to another, my phone crushed between my ear and my shoulder, balancing a cup of coffee in one hand, my mind already churning out a to-do list for tomorrow. Does this sound like you?

If so, you will probably find yourself just as bewildered as me listening to an unexpectedly strange but calm voice asking you,

“Have you received a call from your husband’s office?”

My husband’s office? A call? Who wants to know?

And before I have time to resume my mental Warrior Two position in my mind’s eye, she continues,

“Your husband is Seth Krakauer, with the chronic chest pains?”

I literally jump down this woman’s throat. ” Oh, you must have the wrong husband, I mean, the wrong Seth Krakauer. My -”

This woman was a pro, if that can be the right word to describe how well she does her job informing total strangers that their loved ones have been taken by ambulance to the hospital. She spoke softly but firmly.

“Mrs. Krakauer, your husband suffered a heart attack at 8:10 am this morning and is in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Bellevue Hospital.”

Of course, I was in my car. In traffic. Low on gas. In a high pitched whisper, I asked,

“Will he be OK?”

And I held my breath. It was a moment in eternity.

We are taught to create value through accomplishments. We are what we do. So, the more we do, the more we are. In the rush and tumble of our days we are secretly satisfied knowing we are becoming more valuable with every meeting, event, report, check box scratched off of our to-do lists.

In that suspended moment, all of that vanished. The entire measure of my life hung in the unspoken silence between me and a total stranger.

My mother is always quick to remind me that no matter how much people may think of me, “You are still a speck in the universe.”

How true! And how quickly the universe can focus your distracted attention to the handful of things that are really important in your life. The immensity and the force of these life events take my breath, my ego, my sense of being so important into a sorry little clump and hurtle it through the Goalposts of the Insignificant.

I was reduced to tears, a choking voice, sniffling, coughing, my head pressed against the steering wheel.

“He is stable.”

Three little words. They can change your life.

In a blur of concerned calls and messages, I made my way to the hospital barely able to keep track of what was going on. Oh damn, I just had my phone now where is it? Did she say the 10th or the 11th floor? ICU or CCU?

Superwoman was nowhere to be found.

All it takes is A Big Event, this is how the cardiac team describes Seth’s heart attack, to pull the curtain back to reveal the myth about the Wizard of Oz and his sidekick, Superwoman:

Bottom Line Reminder

You can never be ready for The Call.

You can only be who you are, sans superpowers, and somehow that is the best thing you can be.

P.S. Seth is doing fine.

Subscribe and get a little Wow!