Some weekend plans don’t go the way you think they’re going to go. You can have grand plans, but sometimes life gets in the way.

Trust me on this one. I speak from experience.

On a recent Thursday afternoon, in a rush to get to the airport and out of town, I forgot to pack travel snacks. I usually like to travel with food so I don’t have to eat airport food. “We’ll just grab a small snack at the airport,” I told my daughter when she asked what we were doing for dinner, “Our friends are actually making us dinner and I bet it will be ready for us when we get there.”

We were going to the University of Alabama so my daughter, Zoe, who is a high school senior could tour the campus where my husband and I met, and I was speaking at the Nursing School, at a Komen sponsored event, about my experience with cancer.  All four of us were going.

It was going to be a packed weekend and we even managed to get football tickets to the big homecoming game. I was super excited about our plans and all the fun we were going to have.

Until, life got in the way.

A beautiful homemade dinner was waiting for us when we arrived and we were happy to see our friends and catch up. After we ate, we talked and laughed and reminisced the way old friends who haven’t seen each other in a long time do. We all went to bed around 11:00PM.

Our rooms were lovely and our friends had gone to a lot of trouble. Everything was beautiful and there was even a delicious treat by our bed. Southern hospitality is a thing.

As I fell asleep, I thought about all the fun we were going to have.

I woke up around 12:00AM, started throwing up, and didn’t stop until around 5:00AM. It was horrible but I’ll spare you the details. Let’s just say, at one point, I begged Jon to take me to the hospital to get drugs. Around 3:00AM, my oldest daughter started throwing up.

We all finally fell asleep. But, since I had to be at the Nursing school by 11:00AM, several hours later my alarm clock went off. I’m not sure how I managed to get myself up and dressed. As I was leaving, Jon started throwing up.

Since our hosts weren’t sick, we knew it wasn’t from the beautiful dinner we ate the night before. The only other food we all ate that was similar was the snack at the airport. “I told you it tasted funny when I ate it,” my daughter Zoe reminded us.

Out of the four of us, our youngest daughter, Avi, was the only one still standing.

“Do you think I’m going to get it?” she asked me later that evening. We’d slept all day, had finally gotten some nausea medication and it was dinner time.

“You’re not going to get it,” I told her, “It would have already happened.” I promise.

But, guess what? She woke up in the middle of the night, sick.

We had such grand plans for the weekend. Such high hopes. But, we missed much of what we wanted to do and spent most of our time in bed. We also felt horrible for our hosts. To have guests, go to so much trouble, and then have every single one of your guests get sick in your house isn’t ideal. Our rooms were a mess and we had tons of dirty laundry. I’m sure you can image how gross it was.

Zoe never did get to do an official tour, and while we did get to the football game, Avi had her head on my lap for most of it. She was the saddest Alabama fan I’ve ever seen.

Fortunately, no-one else got sick, just confirming our suspicions that it was food poisoning from the airport food.

Your takeaway:

Life is uncertain. We can make plans and think about what we want to do, but sometimes, things happen. You have to be flexible and resilient. You have to have the ability to laugh, even when life deals you a situation you really don’t want to be in. Were we disapointed? Asolutely. Do I wish things had gone differently? Of course. But, sometimes, you just have to laugh at the situation you find yourself in, count your blessings, even when you’re throwing up, and keep on moving forward. Things could have been worse, and we all understood that.

Sunday evening, when walked through the door to our house, we were four very happy people, glad to be back home. By the way, we passed on getting a snack at the airport on the way home!

Find meaning each day,

Dara