What Might Have Been

My dear Grandpa was in his living room watching the Miss America Pageant on TV.  He was enjoying it very much (Grandpa passed away in 1974, so you know how long ago this happened!).  I was sitting there with him, twenty years old, in college, newly engaged to marry, visiting Grandpa and Grandma.

Then Grandpa commented, "Janice, I've always wished that was you up there on the stage.  I can see you tickling the keys (playing the piano)!"  Then he chuckled.

That sent my brain spinning!  Grandpa, I thought, you are way too late!  I'm going to get married next summer, we want to have a family.  I wish you would have told me this when I was fifteen or sixteen years old, when I could have actually worked toward it.

I have not thought of that moment until now.  I wonder if Grandpa had actually suggested to me when I was younger that I might be talented enough to enter the Miss America competition, I would have worked toward it.

As for the musical ability, I probably had enough talent to improve and be capable of the competition.  It was suggested that I try for a music scholarship to St. Mary-of-the-Woods College in Indiana.  By my senior year in high school, I had been deeply immersed in playing the organ for various churches.  I enjoyed it, and it provided a source of extra income beside babysitting.  I had won a piano competition, state-wide, my junior year and had played on stage (with 39 other pianists!) with the popular pianist and TV star, Liberace (if you remember this, you are no spring chicken!!) at the Kentucky State Fair.  I knew who won the scholarship the previous year and, true or not, I thought I was a much better organist!  But I didn't even bother applying to St. Mary-of-the-Woods for the scholarship.

Had I known then that St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, a women-only school, was in very close proximity to the all-male school, Notre Dame, there's not a doubt in my mind that I would have applied!  My life definitely would have taken a different path than staying at home with my parents till I was married.  Can't go back, though.

As for the other part of the Miss America competition, a perfect body, I think I had the discipline for exercise.  But I didn't (and still don't) feel that women should display their bodies in bathing suits, now extremely skimpy, for any kind of an audience.  That kind of "uncoveredness" is appropriate only while swimming or with one's spouse in the privacy of one's home.  Call me straight-laced, old-fashioned, or whatever you like, I felt that way then and I still do!

So, really, I conclude, even if Grandpa had encouraged me to enter the Miss America pageant when I was fifteen or sixteen, I would not have done it.

Looking back in our lives, I'm sure there are many 'paths' we could have taken.  Yet God has been and is in charge.  I feel - and I've personally seen this in evidence, as it has happened a few times - that God puts people in our life to help us and keeps people away from us that would hurt us.  Does this mean that if we have hard times or experience tragedies, that God is wrong?  No!  Whatever that happens to us is for our greater good, that we learn from our poor choices, but God brings good from them.

As for me, looking back, I am quite content with my life.  It has taken me many places I never could have predicted, nursing school for one.  My crowning achievement are my children, each and every one.  I could not be prouder of them and the fine persons that have become!  When I was a teenager, there was one thing I wanted more than anything: a large and happy family.  That happened! Had I been Miss America, my life would have been quite different!

Praise you, Lord, for allowing me to achieve my real dreams!  Please lead everyone else to know what they want, truly, for their good, and help them attain it!