Prayers Are Answered Different Ways

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I feel like I just found out that I won the lottery.

No, they didn’t find a cure for Alzheimer’s. That wouldn’t be like winning the lottery. That would be more like feeding 5,000 people with just a handful of fish and a few loaves of bread. It would be like Lazarus rising from the dead. Like turning water into beer. (I don’t drink that much wine)

No, this lottery I feel like I won is one I actually used to pray for. I just didn’t realize I had won it until now.

Thirty-some years ago I had a secretary who used to love playing the slots in Atlantic City and buying lottery tickets. After a while of her offering I finally gave her a buck and asked her to play a ‘Pick 6’ for me. I did that once a month for a few years until one day I hit five out of six numbers, winning $5,000. We had just bought a house so we could really use the money.

Two weeks after winning that lottery our sewer line broke. Guess what the repair bill was?

That’s right, $5,000.

Well, easy come easy go. Looking back, I wasn’t upset, I was happy because if we hadn’t won that money we would have been up financial sewer creek.

A year later when we had our third child I began playing the lottery again. We really needed some financial help and besides, I had the perfect six numbers. 4-5-6-8-10-18. Those six numbers included all five of our birthdays, day and month. I justified playing the lotto by the fact that I was playing for the family (and the numbers were easy to remember).

When I was working 70+ hour weeks during the long winters I would actually pray to win the lottery so I could spend more time with my wife and kids.

In those prayers I wasn’t asking for Warren Buffett money, so I could buy an island, on even a boat to get there, or even a truck to pull the boat. I come from modest means and all I wanted to win was enough money so I didn’t have to work. Not looking to live the lifestyle of the rich and famous, just the same way I was living at that time. The only difference would be when I woke up in the morning I could say to my wife, ‘I get to stay home with you today. I don’t have to go to work today.’

Like a snow day without the snow.

I wasn’t being lazy. I have always had a good work ethic. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to work. I just wanted to spend a lot more time with my family. That was always the worst part of my job, the long hours.

Some five years ago, when my wife was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease, I stopped saying that lottery prayer. I was too busy praying for more important things. Life and death things.

When my son recently told me he had played the Powerball it reminded me of those prayers I used to say about winning the lottery. And I suddenly realized, my prayer WAS answered. I just didn’t realize it. It wasn’t exactly answered the way I asked. The way I hoped. The way I expected. But it WAS answered.

Two years, one week and two days ago I quit my job to become a fulltime caregiver, to take care of my wife Terry, and I have spent every one of those days by her side, 24 hours a day.

And THAT, more or less, is what I had prayed for.

Granted, the circumstances are about as different as they could possibly be from what I had envisioned in my retirement, what I had hoped for. What I thought I had prayed for.

The bottom line, however, is that I get to spend all day, every day, with my partner, my wife, the most important person in my life.

The measly stipend I receive from my too early retirement, along with Terry’s disability assistance, has so far kept us financially afloat. (Like I said we come from modest means, so I know how to make do.)

It is not like we go out much. I went the entire month of June and the entire month of August without putting gas in my car, and I have yet to buy gas in October. (I used to average 25,000 miles a year when I worked.)

And tonight, we get to sit on our couch and watch both the Red Sox and Patriots play, Terry’s two favorite teams.

Between you and me, I’d rather be spending my retirement with my wife the way I envisioned, the way I dreamed, riding bikes in the park or sitting on a beach. That would be much better than how I really spend my time, wiping her butt after she ruined another perfectly good Depends after laughing a little too hard. (Granted, I’d rather her laugh too hard and get messy than to not be laughing at all. Most of the time I feel that way, anyway)

The fact is I DID get what I asked for. I get to spend all of my time with the most important person in my life.

Part of me wants to say, ‘be careful what you ask for.’

Until next time, remember that when you pray for something and think the prayer has not been answered, it sometimes turns out the prayer was just answered in a different way than expected.

Bud

budfocht@gmail.com