The Girl Who Stepped Onto A Moving Staircase

Plot twists and moving staircases is this life.

Last week I sat with a vibrant woman who joyfully shared with me that she’d just become a grandmother and had just returned from visiting her daughter and new granddaughter. Then dipping her head down and leaning inward, she shared with me, as if peering over glasses she wasn’t wearing, that her daughter and husband had been married only a year. I was to connect the dots.

They’d been dating when her daughter found out she was pregnant. She called her mom in a panic not knowing what to do but pretty sure this couldn’t happen. She decided she would tell him on their next date.

And this is where the plot twists.

I find it interesting how we make so many plans in our lives that simply don’t come to fruition. For whatever reason. But it seems to me those moments of threshold… the crossroads… often come as unexpected surprises we never saw coming. Sometimes those crossroads look more like the moving staircases in Harry Potter. Maybe that’s a good thing. For all you need to do is step out and you are taken in a new direction, a third choice, a new ride.

The plan in this case was as follows. She would meet her boyfriend at the intimate restaurant, make sure they were seated in a quiet private corner where she could discreetly tell him the news - and then tell him it would soon be over and done. She wasn’t keeping the baby. That was the plan. Simple, brief, complete.

But the staircase moved.

She arrived at the “intimate” restaurant to find it packed and crowded.

She was shown to a table in the middle of the room surrounded by people.

Privacy denied.

She thought she’d twist the plot back and not tell him but as the time passed decided it best to get it out. So she leaned in and whispered the news, and in her mind this would quickly to be followed by her rehearsed script, beginning with the word “but”.

But - the staircase moved.

For before she could follow through, her boyfriend fully leapt upon his chair in delight and stood above the crowds in the packed un-private room and shouted,

“HEY EVERYBODY! WE’RE HAVING A BABY!!!”

The restaurant erupted in applause filling the room with the sweet joy and congratulations of a new baby on the way.

I asked this new grandmother what her daughter did. Well, she said, my daughter said to me… “I guess we’re having a baby!”

And so they married, and Grandmother will be retiring this year and moving a few states to the northwest to make sure her granddaughter will grow up speaking the three languages she speaks. She then showed me a picture of her granddaughter on the lock screen of her phone; a gorgeous piece of newly formed perfection with a soft brown mop top to boot; her eyes wide open surveying this “Nana” as if to say, “Where are you going, why are you leaving, and when will you be back?”

Plot twists and moving staircases is this life.

I think of the scene in the movie Parenthood where the grandmother is talking about how some people don’t like riding the roller coaster, but she always did:

"You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster... Oh, what a ride! You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around... nothing... I like the roller-coaster. You get more out of it".

Or the moment when Indiana Jones realizes in order to complete his journey he must step out in faith off a cliff. Only then does the bridge appear.

Yes, there is the merry-go-round. Some do choose to just go round and round. But where does that get you?

Plot twists, moving staircases, rollercoasters, invisible bridges, crossroads and thresholds.

Terrifying. Exhilarating. Exhausting. Uplifting. Surprising…

Living.

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