By Shellie Miller-Farrugia
Recently at the park catching up with a friend, I had the opportunity to stroll with him while my husband took photos for this issue. My friend had been told by an athletically minded source that there was a girl who played well and fit the age parameters for the travel team he coaches. Since she happened to be playing in a game at the park, we went to check her out. She didn’t know we were watching and, in pretty short order, it was evident that her skills weren’t ready for my buddy’s league. I wondered to myself about this precious young lady. Why did this moment happen? Was it to insure that her life didn’t take a turn in a direction it wasn’t meant to? How many times do any one of us stand in a place where our world could change with one person’s decision?
And this little event started a firestorm in my mind about all of the decisions that had been flying around me as I made my way through life’s maze. My father’s decision to marry my mom when I was seven and move us to Florida, my husband’s decision to marry me and my two young boys (and have two more babies), my sons’ decisions to be wrestlers instead of, say, band members. All of these choices made by others have put me in the place that I am today. If huge corporations had overlooked a few smaller companies instead of buying them, I would still be trading produce (which I did for twenty years), and there would be no Spectator. If there had been no Spectator, there are friends who are dear to Scott & I today that we would have never met. There are prayers that would have never been proferred. It’s all a chain that links him to her and that family to them and finally lands someone in your life that you’d have never known; a job that you would never have had; a child that you would never hold….
So many of us think that we are running our lives, when it’s more likely that a host of others are creating the links that put us where we do or don’t belong. A little sorry for her lack of “game” that day, now I’m glad that the little girl didn’t get scouted for the team. I’m more than certain that another Scout has something greater planned for her.