The Day My Life Tapestry Changed

It was 5 pm, Tuesday, November 15, 2021, and I was in Newberg, Oregon caring for my mother. 

My days with Mom were about slowing down from my busyness and being present in a quieter way than with my counseling clients. We draw with colored pencils and talk about everything from early life memories on the family farm to why we both dropped out of college after just one year. We discover we are far more alike than we ever realized. I am learning a whole new level of taking what life hands you and seeing the importance of this moment, from this dear woman who has weathered through so much in her 96 years.

That is how it was at 5 pm on Tuesday, November 15, 2021. Mom and I were watching a game show rerun when I saw a text message from my husband, Fred, back home in Salem, Oregon. 

Beth—you might want to come home as soon as you can, apparently, we are taking over as foster parents for the girls

I sucked in air and turned away from mom, trying not to scream or cry or whatever you are supposed to do when such unthinkable things happen. I quickly texted my sister to see how soon she would be home so I could head out in the dark for the hour-long drive home to understand the fate which had just become ours.

This wasn’t an absolute surprise. We knew that the state Department of Human Services (DHS) was investigating, but no one had hinted to us that we might be considered for foster parenting. Fred and I had discussed the “what-ifs” and we planned to advocate to have our two granddaughters, 6 years and 18 months, come to live with us if it came to that. But the suddenness was a shock. DHS asked Fred how quickly he could come to get the girls. He made it there in 10 minutes as I finished caring for Mom and headed home.

I arrived home to find social service workers, my husband and two scared little girls. That moment changed my life, my husband’s life, my daughter’s life, and the lives of these two little girls, plus a third child to be born a few months later.

At 66 years old I grieved what I was learning about the living conditions of these little girls, and the potential trajectory of their lives. I was grieving what had become of my beautiful, brilliant first-born child, their mother. I was angry about things which have happened to her, and the efforts to help her which never produced healing. I was angry at her genetics, her amazing efforts to overcome so much and yet… here we were.

As a mental health therapist, I have come alongside many women with similar struggles and I have been able to help them. But nothing I knew, no effort I made had had any long-term impact on my daughter. That day in November, she was at a crossroads and I no longer had the optimism I had had at other crossroads in her life.

It has been said, that we have each been dealt a hand of cards in this game called life. We don’t get to choose the hand. It becomes our mission on this planet to play the hand we’ve been dealt the best we can. 

You might say God dealt you that hand. You may say it is fate.

The Greeks looked to the Fates to explain how our lives unfold. The Fates were goddesses who were weavers of the tapestries of our lives. They assigned each person’s destiny at birth. One would spin the thread which represented the person’s life, one determined the length of thread which would be one’s life, and one had the brutal job of cutting the thread which ended the tapestry. 

Together they weave our lives, they choose the pattern and colors this life will have and when and how it will end. Except for one thing. According to a professor I met years ago, there is an exception; a moment when fate and opportunity intersect giving the person a chance to change the trajectory they are on. This happens when a new piece of thread needs to be tied on.

There is a momentary pause; the new thread is added, tied with a knot called a “nick.” In that moment there is a chance to change the pattern, a chance to change the destiny of one’s life. It comes “just in the nick of time.” 

I believe on Tuesday, November 15, 2021 a new thread was tied on my tapestry and that of my tiny granddaughters. I believe it came just in the nick of time for two tiny girls. I wanted to hope it also came just in the nick of time for my daughter, as well.

I’m reflecting back on the “nick in time” as this is now June 15, 2025. Four years, 7 months later. Since that day my mother died, as has my sister and her husband. My granddaughters are now 10 and 5 years old and are joined by their sister, who turns 3 in July. My daughter has made tremendous changes and is raising her daughters with daily support from my husband and I.

The existential angst of November 15, 2021 has only slightly faded as there is much healing still needed for these little girls and our daughter. But, the pattern of our tapestries has changed. My pattern shows a change in life meaning and their new pattern has hope weaved in.

Thinking of the myth of the Fates, recognizing those moments which come in the “nick of time,” has helped me stay grounded amid the crisis.

It takes me to Viktor Frankl and his passion for embracing life’s meaning. Life called me to grab hold of a new meaning. One life pattern ended and a new one began. 

A nick often arrives in our lives as an uninvited guest while we are already just trying to keep our head above water. Viktor Frankl reflects on such moments in Man’s Search for Meaning (1984).

“…it did not really matter what we expect from life rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.” (Frankl, p. 98)

The jolt on November 15, 2021, was the ending of one thread and a new thread was knotted to the old thread “just in the nick of time. One part of life’s tapestry ended and a different pattern was begun. Somehow thinking of this nick as something which has come to change the weave of my life has helped me embrace this moment and ask, “What is life expecting of me now?”

Frankl. V. (1959, 1984). Man’s Search for Meaning, revised and updated. Washington Square Press.