“

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

