Daring Greatly

No matter how much we plan, how hard we try, how much we hope, pray, envision, not everything turns out as we imagined, dreamed, wished for. How often have we heard, “It wasn’t meant to be” from the wise and well-meaning. Did I mention “maddening”?

Perhaps what’s maddening is how often they’re right.

I had a plan. No, no I didn’t. I had a picture, and it looked a lot like the one I saw in the family photos our parents sent out every Christmas. Let’s be honest; no one frames the trauma photos. I had no idea what went on behind the scenes of our parents’ lives, but it all looked pretty darn great on film.

I was told by well-meaning relatives throughout my growing-up years that I would be the first among my four siblings to get married and have children. And I was right on track when I married first. But I forgot to choose a partner with whom I would want to have children, a partner from whom I would want my children to learn anything.

Years later, I adopted baby twin girls because it was love at first sight and because they reached for me. How could an undertaking that felt founded in love go so wildly wrong?

For more than 20 years, I have questioned my decision and judged its outcome like a recurring nightmare that stalks my soul. Yet, on February 9, Olympic champion downhill ski racer Lindsey Vonn penned a letter to the world, the day after the gold medal contender crashed and burned 13 seconds into her run, resulting in a complex tibia fracture.

And I have sat with that letter, reading it like a psalm ever since. She wrote:

“Yesterday my Olympic dream did not finish the way I dreamt it would. It wasn’t a storybook ending or a fairytale; it was just life. I dared to dream and had worked so hard to achieve it. Because in downhill ski racing the difference between a strategic line and a catastrophic injury can be as small as 5 inches.

“I was simply 5 inches too tight on my line when my right arm hooked inside of the gate, twisting me and resulting in my crash. My ACL and past injuries had nothing to do with my crash, whatsoever.

“Unfortunately, I sustained a complex tibia fracture that is currently stable but will require multiple surgeries to fix properly.

“While yesterday did not end the way I had hoped, and despite the intense physical pain it caused, I have no regrets. Standing in the starting gate yesterday was an incredible feeling that I will never forget. Knowing I stood there having a chance to win was a victory in and of itself. I also knew that racing was a risk. It always was and always will be an incredibly dangerous sport.

“And similar to ski racing, we take risks in life. We dream. We love. We jump. And sometimes we fall. Sometimes our hearts are broken. Sometimes we don’t achieve the dreams we know we could have. But that is the also the beauty of life; we can try.

“I tried. I dreamt. I jumped.

“I hope, if you take away anything from my journey, it’s that you all have the courage to dare greatly. Life is too short not to take chances on yourself. Because the only failure in life is not trying.

“I believe in you, just as you believed in me.”

In Lindsey’s closing statements, she quoted author Dr. Brené Brown when she wrote, “I hope if you take away anything from my journey it’s that you all have the courage to dare greatly.”

“. . .the courage to dare greatly.” I have read those words before from Brené Brown. I pondered their invitation, their power—but had forgotten them. Yet in reading the words anew, shared by Lindsey Vonn from where she lay in her hospital bed the day after she left her gold medal on a mountaintop, I heard them.

And I realized, perhaps for the first time, in adopting my children, I dared greatly. Like Lindsey, I crashed and burned, but I too, knew there was a risk. And, like Lindsey, I took it anyway.

I’ve often been asked, if I had it to do over, would I. Had I seen the video of how it would play out, it’s hard to imagine. Yet what I do know is that once I met those adorable twin babies sitting on the floor of their fifth foster home, I couldn’t leave them there. And that is a decision I would make again. To take chances. To try. To dare greatly.