“
There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who
had worked his crops for many years. One
day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the
news, his neighbors came to visit. ‘Such bad luck,’
they said sympathetically. ‘Maybe,’ the farmer
replied.
The next morning the horse returned, bring-
ing with it three other wild horses. ‘How wonder-
ful,’ the neighbors exclaimed. ‘Maybe,’ replied the
old man.
The following day, his son tried to ride one of
the untamed horses, was thrown off and broke
his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their
sympathy on his misfortune. ‘Maybe,’ answered
the farmer.
The day after, military officials came to the
village to draft young men into the army. Seeing
that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him
by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on
how well things had turned out. ‘Maybe,’ said the
farmer.”
***
I’ve always had issues figuring out and navi-
gating the ideas of chance, luck, fate. For instance,
as I went through the college application process,
I was convinced that there was only one place for
me. Spoiler alert: That place was not the Universi-
ty of Michigan. And after a gruesome college ap-
plication process that seemed to keep kicking me
while I was down, I finally decided on the Uni-
versity.
T h o u g h
impressive and
honorable,
my
choice left me disap-
pointed and dis-
heartened. With
what felt like
years spent on a perfect application and resume,
it didn’t feel right to end up at a university that
wasn’t my dream school.
However, experience has only furthered the
idea that luck is much more complex than the col-
lege application process. One night, my stepdad
and I were discussing the intricacies behind the
concept that everything happens for a reason. He
had shared a story with me, further complicating
my seemingly never-ending struggle of trying to
come to conclusive beliefs pertaining to luck, fate
and chance.
In 2014, my stepdad was led to believe by
his aches and high fever that he had the flu. He
called his doctor the next morning and went
in for a brief examination later that afternoon.
The doctor instructed him not to go home, but
instead straight to the emergency room because
he had been presenting the classic symptoms of
appendicitis. He was rushed into surgery that
night. Apparently, there are a few ways to re-
move an appendix. Commonly, doctors make a
large incision near the appendix and remove it
in one piece by cutting it out. Another method
is through a laparoscopic procedure. There are
two methods to this procedure: the first method
is one in which tubes are inserted through two
or three small incisions and the appendix is ei-
ther cut up into smaller pieces and removed, en-
closed in a net and removed in multiple pieces, or
the second method in which the appendix is en-
closed in a plastic bag and removed in one piece.
In either method, the bag or net is then pulled
across the abdomen and taken out through one
of the small incisions. Many surgeons have a
preferred method, either by means of the net
or plastic bag, when operating via laparoscopic
procedure. When performing the approach on
my stepdad, his surgeon, luckily, used the plas-
tic bag approach which completely enclosed his
appendix upon taking it out. After sending his
appendix to a lab following the removal, it was
discovered that his appendix was full of cancer.
It was never actually appendicitis.
A
week later when my stepdad went
for his follow-up visit, his surgeon told
him the shocking news: “For whatev-
er reason, you’re very lucky, because I removed
your appendix enclosed in a plastic bag, and con-
sequently, none of your cancer cells were able to
spread through the abdomen. Had I used the net
approach, I would have been dragging the cancer
cells straight across your abdomen, causing them
to spread.”
Was that because of mere coincidence? Was
this luck? Or was it for some greater purpose that
was for my stepdad to seek out?
Maybe.
I found myself asking these questions again
more recently. As the summer of 2019 was com-
ing to an end, my mom was diagnosed with
leukemia. This diagnosis resulted in my mom
needing a bone marrow transplant by the end of
the year to save her life. The chances were not
in our favor. The likelihood of getting a perfect
match, which is what my mom needed to sur-
vive, is roughly 0.3%. The likelihood of a child of
the person in need of a transplant being a perfect
match is about 1%.
Yet against all odds, my mom received news
that they had found a perfect match.
My sister and I were both only half of a
match, meaning the likelihood of our donation
being a success was slim to none. This means my
mother was one in 300 to receive a perfect trans-
plant from an absolute stranger. My family felt so
lucky. And now, her donor Annie feels far from a
stranger. It feels as if we were brought together
through unfortunate circumstances and were
meant, in a near unexplainable way, to meet.
Annie got swabbed to be in the bone mar-
row registry through Be The Match 20 years
ago when she was 18 years old as an under-
graduate student at Dartmouth College. There
was a drive set up in what I imagine was Dart-
mouth’s version of The Diag. After being in the
registry for 20 years, Annie got a phone call
from Be The Match in late September 2019,
letting her know that she was a preliminary
match for a 52-year-old woman with leukemia
— my mom. After getting further blood test-
ing and a physical, Annie was able to donate
her bone marrow and subsequently save my
mom’s life.
Whenever I tell the story of my mom getting
her transplant, I always say “We (my family) are so
lucky,” or I get the response, “Wow, you are all so
lucky.”
Maybe.
Does everything happen for a reason? Can
these questions be asked in even the most unthink-
able and traumatic of situations, when other fami-
lies in similar situations didn’t experience the same
stroke of chance as mine?
After a little over a year of reflection, I have
come to terms with this series of events. I feel so
fortunate that we got a perfect match. On top of
that, I now have this person in my life who over-
laps so fiercely with everything I am a part of —
academics and personal interests. Is it a stroke of
luck or coincidence? Have there been other lucky
aspects in my life where I just haven’t been paying
attention?
Ultimately, I realized that there does not always
have to be a reason for everything. Though every-
thing may not happen for some greater reason,
possibly, everything happens for an opportunity.
An opportunity to merge my family with Annie’s,
through something of both great sorrow and great
joy. An opportunity to get to know the kind per-
son who entered a bone marrow registry 20 years
ago, and still actively chose to donate to a complete
stranger, decades later. An opportunity to find out
she is from a U-M family — her mom went to the
University as an undergraduate student in the class
of 1976 (and wrote for The Daily, even!), along with
her brother in the class of 2007 and Annie, too, who
received her MBA here. What a weird connection
— a coincidence? Fate?
Upon finding all of this out, I started thinking
about how in life when we are dealt a really tough
hand of cards, it sometimes takes getting through
it to be able to see what was gained from it. See
how we have grown, see how we were shaped by
an experience and see how we are prepared for
more difficult decks because of it. While I want
to make it clear that I am not grateful for the or-
igins and thick of the experience, I do recognize
that some things I am grateful for came out of it. I
take pride in both how I, along with the rest of my
family, grew from it and the people I got to know
because of it.
I think deep down I continue to ask myself
these questions and grapple with them because I
am endlessly trying to find a justification for this
horrible thing that happened to my family. Because
I am not religious, when analyzing the ideas of,
chance, luck and fate, or the common rationale of
“everything happens for a reason,” I am left to my-
self on how I view the world. During difficult times
like this, I try to ask these questions to find some-
thing to lean into or something to believe in to jus-
tify or explain this incidence for a larger purpose.
How I view the world has been shaped by my
experiences and will continue to be shaped by my
experiences. So even though in the moment, it may
seem like the end of the world, I know I can look to
the “maybe” moment of what could come out of it.
Is it luck? Maybe.
BY MARISSA SABLE, STATEMENT COLUMNIST
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
statement
Wednesday, March 17, 2021 — 3A
Courtesy of Annie Snider