ECHO This!
The Knock at the Door of My Life That Changed Everything
Be miserable. Or motivate yourself.
Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.
~ Wayne Dyer
Life is very much a quest and a journey. As we follow a path, we will go through phases, and in certain seasons we will come across several doors. When we hear the knocks on those doors, we have to decide to open or close the one that is in front of us. We must choose whether or not to receive or reject what is on the other side of each door we face.
These knocks at the doors of our lives are either obstacles or opportunities. In the moment when we hear each one, it is a potential challenge or a gift. The gift may be the lessons of wisdom and truth that enter the door perceived through our own looking glass. Regardless of what awaits us on the other side, it is our decision to choose what we will do with what greets us as we open each door in our paths on our journey in life.
In these next three conversations, I invite you to come along with me on my quest and journey that has been interrupted by three knocks on my life’s doors. In your willingness to follow, I will guide you through what it has been like to encounter each door, learn to navigate through all three and to travel what I call my 38DDD journey from surviving to thriving in all things in life. Curious? Well, hold on. This is a quest and all things will be revealed in good time, because good things come to those who wait.
In any good story or journey one must start at the beginning. So for the purpose of our quest, the very best place is to introduce myself and share with you a bit before we embark on navigating through the doors on my journey. I’m a mother of two children and we live in Louisiana. As a multi-published author, speaker and creator of five diverse series on a range of topics, I share my heartfelt meditations on the subjects that I’m passionate about. It is through my books that I ECHO my story and message from my life experiences and lessons infused with wisdom and truth.
My message that I want to ECHO is this: we don’t get a free pass from the hard times in life. It’s not a question of if but a question of when, how many, to what degree and what kind of challenges you go through. Y’all may not go through what I do, and I won’t go through what you all face. But there’s still something to overcome, and it takes a lot, even though each struggle has its own idiosyncrasies and nuances. It’s like muscle memory. Once you learn how to respond to the knocks, navigate the doors of life and overcome in life. You can respond again and again with the same effective skill set. If you can’t move the mountain, you have to find a way around it. I learned how to go around, above, under and over the mountains as well as many other skills early on in my life that have proven immensely and essentially useful as I have navigated through all three of the doors in my life that makeup my 38DDD.
I write because I want to share my message to help you understand that if I can do it, y’all can do it, too. We all go through struggles, tribulations and challenges. I want to help you understand that you can learn how to navigate through your own doors and overcome what is behind each door if you just choose to. I want to encourage and inspire you; I strive to be relevant and relatable. Show me a person who can’t relate. I want to help empower you to go from surviving to thriving in all things in life but learning how to navigate through your doors that are in your path as you journey through life.
Just who is Michaela S. Cox? I’ve always found it intriguing to identify with certain fictional characters. A good way to give you insight to peer into my looking glass and see how I view the world is through exploring some of them. I’ve always loved Ariel because I’m a redhead, have blue eyes and love anything water. I would live in the water if I could! I’ve always been so intrigued by mermaids. Also, I remember when I was a kid relating to Big Bird. He was different and unique, and I knew I was, too. He was happy, friendly, bright and fun. I remember sensing that I wanted to be my own unique, joyful, friendly self and shine my true self and bright colors, able to be me and accepted for who I was and am now.
As I have come into my adulthood, owning who I am with all my bright purple feathers of individuality, uniqueness, and true colors, I consider myself to be a purple odd duck and I don’t give a fn@k (lol)! Remember I’m a redhead and southern Texas girl and a Scorpio who lives up to said reputation. Later as I became a mom, one of my favorite movies in our house was Finding Nemo. My favorite character was Dory, the blue fish. I loved that all the time she said, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming!” I feel that fits so well with me. All my life I tried and strived just to keep swimming, no matter what, to thrive. Going forward, I ECHO the attributes of these characters that have become the keys to unlocking and navigating through the doors that led me from surviving to thriving.
Now that you know a little about me and have been given a peek into my looking glass, I’m sure you have been wondering what I meant earlier when I described my journey as 38DDD. Well I”m happy to let you know your wait is over. It is in no way descriptive or indicative of my garment size or physical attributes. It is a descriptive summary of the three knocks at the door of my life and what it has been like to walk through each D in my path. Traveling through these life’s doors has taught me how to go from surviving to thriving as a result of my lifelong Disability of legal blindness, Divorce at 26 in 2005 and then the Death of my beloved husband, all by the time I was 38 in 2017. After a wonderful and blessed marriage, I had to carry on as a legally blind widow and solo mom to my babies.
The first knock on my door in my journey came at the absolute beginning of my life when I took my first breath. I’ve never had a day when I saw through normal eyes. I’ve always had totally messed up eyes. Throughout my childhood, my home life was very good, but although I was a quick learner, school was extremely hard for me. A disability affects just about every aspect of your life. I could literally write a whole book on this alone. Basically, the root of my complex vision loss is Optic Nerve Atrophy.
This is the way it was explained to me. If you have ever been in an eye doctor’s office, or in an anatomy, physiology or biology high school class and seen a graphic of the optic nerve, mine is the opposite and not the right shape, far from it. As far as its color, mine, instead of being purple as it should be, is the color of a manilla folder. In my book Now I See … A Lifetime of Learned Truths Along My Journey Through Life I explain how doctors discovered my vision problem. We were living in Houston at the time, (remember, I’m a Texas girl). After discovering the issue, my pediatrician said before sending me to a specialist, “I don’t know what to tell you, but your daughter doesn’t have optic nerves.” They couldn’t find them! However, in reality, they were so pale they were almost undetectable except to the specialist. Then let’s throw into the mix nearsightedness, astigmatism, nystagmus, crappy depth perception and poor peripheral vision. This all makes for a “fun and interesting” complex visual cocktail. The reason is the underlying connection of my optic nerve. The blood can’t flow through the nerve to signal to the brain what the eye is supposed to perceive. It’s like a constantly delayed reaction in processing or taking in information.
Thus everything takes longer for me to do. When the body is lacking in one way, it often compensates in another. This is evident in every area of my life: in my approach and methods for academic learning, social communication, relationships, transportation (legal blindness and driving don’t and shouldn’t mix), shopping, eating out, managing a household, caring for and parenting my babies, and planning and organizing my day to make the logistics of my life work. There are endless examples of how my life is impacted by this one D in my 38DDD journey. So it’s a continually evolving process that I’ve used to develop strategies, tools in my toolbox, coping mechanisms or workarounds to navigate all aspects of my life.
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The second knock on my life’s door came in 2005. This knock brought me to the unwanted, unexpected place of getting a divorce following a problematic and horrific first marriage. I feel that for me the process of divorce was more challenging because of my background. Raised in a household that held to and believed in the Christian faith, we didn’t get divorced in our family. My parents have been married for almost 49 years, and they’ve been together for over 50. My mom’s mom and dad were married for 28 years before he passed away in 1978 right before I was born, and I think my dad’s parents were married for close to 38 years.
Basically, it wasn’t until my generation that there was a divorce in our family. We didn’t and don’t believe in it, and I still don’t believe in divorce now, but I’m divorced. So when I separated for the second time, the hardest thing for me was coming to a decision that felt like I wasn’t violating what I believed in, one of the core fundamentals of my faith. When I finally was able to make that decision, it was a lot easier to figure out, but that was a big struggle for me.
At that point doubt set in. Okay, now you’re divorced and you’ve been a “we“ right? You’ve been a couple. Now you’re just you or an “I” and on your own. You thought you knew what you were going to have or what was going to happen, or
whatever …..fill in the blank. There’s a lot that goes with that. I had to take a year for myself because I just wanted to figure myself out again after the traumatizing experience of my first marriage along with the painful decision to divorce. I just needed me to be me and figure out what I wanted in life now.
Following my divorce in February of 2005, in May of 2005 I was very blessed and fortunate beyond measure to meet the love of my life, and between dating and marriage, we were together for 12 amazing years. But then tragically in 2017 the third knock, that came on my door and in journey, came when my beloved husband passed away. I once again found myself in the unwanted, unexpected place of nowhere I wanted to be, a widow and solo parent of children six and three, all by the age of 38.
As you have been following me on my journey of 38DDD, I will now focus solely on the third knock and what it’s been like the last six years since April 4, 2017, the actual day that changed everything. It was a Tuesday morning like any other day, a normal, chilly spring day in New Hampshire, very picturesque and beautiful with blue skies and the sun shining. Prior to April 4, 2017, it had been a great, perfect weekend. Saturday night I got to watch the women’s NCAA basketball semi-finals. March Madness is one of my absolute favorite things, and I truly enjoy it. Anyone who knows me knows I love to get in the 10 days of basketball every year. I have missed only two tournaments since high school in 2014, and then in 2020 due to NCAA cancellations because of the Pandemic. On Sunday we had a relaxing day with the kids doing family things. Monday brought the normal school routine. John and I watched the game, and it was a good one. We stayed up through overtime because the next day John took a leave day.
Tuesday morning, we all got up, got ready and took our daughter to the bus stop for school. John, our son, and I headed out to Nashua, a town about 15-20 minutes away from home in Manchester, NH. I had counseling that morning. Then, John wanted to get a haircut before work on Wednesday because his hair had gotten too long for military regulations. He was perfectly annoyed we all had to wait so long at the barber. When he was done, it was a perfect time for lunch so the three of us went to get a bite to eat at Pizza Man, one of our favorite places close to home. We were always up there. It was our version of “Cheers” in the sense that everybody knows your name and we could also get beer there. John and I enjoyed local dives.
We had the best conversation over lunch. That was one of the most amazing things about our relationship. John and I always loved to talk about anything and everything and had great conversations, one of my absolute favorite things about us as a couple. Over lunch we chatted about what John was looking forward to, what excited him, and what he wanted to do by next year as his date of retirement approached on April 30, 2018, after 20 years of military service. He was thinking about all the things necessary to prepare for life on the outside in civilian life. Setting us up for the next chapter of our lives together as our adventure continued, John was also very excited about what awaited us. He was in great anticipation of what we would do both as a couple and as a family with our precious babies.
After pizza we all went home and enjoyed a relaxing nap. I set my alarm to make sure I got up in time to meet the school bus. When we came back to the house, our daughter checked the mail. I opened an envelope from the Social Security Administration that rendered a decision on my disability, and like all the other times, I was denied…surprise, surprise, surprise! This always completely ruffled my feathers, and the reasoning over this matter is a story for another time. Suffice it to say I was highly annoyed. John decided that he needed to go out and get homework done before this weekend. He had two assignments due on Sunday, and as luck would have it, the weeks of his major school deadlines would coincide with drill weekend. For most of our marriage we were both students in addition to everything else we had going on. I completely finished all my schooling as of June 2016. Never a dull moment.
That afternoon around 4 p.m., John gave me and the babies kisses, and he headed out to get a beer, eat and study. This might seem odd to others, but this was completely normal for us. This is what we did and how we got through undergraduate and two graduate programs all the while raising our two babies, being a family, and John serving in the military. Many evenings after the kids were in bed, we would sit on the couch watching tv next to each other on our computers working on school work and reading. When there was no drill weekend, I would go to Panera’s and spend my Saturdays studying while John spent the time with our babies. They would pick me up and then we would go out as a family. This was great for us and it worked. We loved our lives and how we worked together to press toward our dreams, traveling this journey hand in hand and side by side. If John had extra assignments, he would go out to a favorite spot or sometimes go back to his office where he had two computer screens so he could get double the work done in half the time.
As John was getting ready to leave, he and I discussed the BS decision rendered by the Social Security Administration regarding my disability claim and what we would do to handle this. He gave me an amazing kiss goodbye, held me close and said, “See you when I get back, and it will be okay. We will do this together and work it out and come up with a plan.” I said, “Okay. I love you. See you tonight.” He headed out and I took care of the babies, the usual homework, dinner, bedtime, and so forth.
I had been texting with John off and on over the next few hours. I thought I would wait up until he got home and write like I usually did on most nights. On this particular evening, though, I thought, “Screw it!” I was so tired and outdone by the disability decision that I decided to go to bed early. It was about 8:24 p.m. I had been trying to text John but hadn’t heard anything for the last hour and 40 minutes or so. This didn’t alarm me. He and I both when studying would silence or turn off our phones altogether, especially if writing papers. So, I called to say our usual good night. Then I crawled into our oh so warm, cozy, comfy bed and curled up hoping to drift off into a wonderful sleepy dreamland, awaiting John to snuggle up against me as I peacefully slept.
My mind was full of thoughts racing and playing out options and scenarios of what to do regarding the disability denial, a job, the kids, and student loan payments. I remember starting to simply drift off, almost asleep. Not sure if what I heard was real or in a dream, I was startled by what I thought was a knock at the door. No, it can’t be. John had his keys, so he should just open the door and let himself in and come to bed. Then, I heard the noise again. I thought okay, all right, fine. I’m coming, and I got up out of my warm, snuggly bed. I remember saying to myself why in the hell can’t you just put down the beer, take your keys out, and let yourself in so I don’t have to get up out of my cozy, comfy spot? I got up and went down the stairs, very annoyed I might add.
Considering my sleeping habits, I had a sense that just in case it wasn’t John to tuck myself behind the door where only my head would appear when I opened it. You know how when in nature there is a storm brewing you can feel and smell it in the air? The knock at our door this night was the sound cue of the music changing in a movie, very poignant and palpable. The storm wasn’t just brewing on the horizon, it was now directly over my home, life, and heart. It raged, ready to demolish everything that stood in its path as sure as if a tornado had torn through our home. Our lives ripped completely to shreds, my babies and I were left standing surrounded by the wreckage of this unforeseen storm that came in a blink of an eye. Out of nowhere, it left us forever shattered, heartbroken, and changed, never to be the same again.
I opened the door to see that it wasn’t my husband. It was two officers of the Manchester, NH Police Department.
Good evening. Are you Mrs. Cox?
Yes, how can I help you?
Ma’am, is your husband John Cox?
Yes, what is this about?
Ma’am, we need to speak with you. May we come in?
Officers, what is this about, my husband?
Ma’am, we’d like to come inside and speak with you about your husband.
What is going on with my husband?
Ma’am, can we please come in?
Please hold on one second. I need to get something. I will be right with you.
I closed the door for a second so I could grab the blanket off the couch and wrap myself up in it. I opened the door and invited the nice officers into my living room as I stood there hearing the words I never dreamed I would hear. The words changed my life forever, turning our world upside down, inside and out, shattering it into such tiny pieces it was unrecognizable.
Ma’am, this evening 911 was notified.
We have found your husband.
What happened?
Right now, ma’am, we aren’t sure just yet, but your husband has passed.
It will still be under investigation.
Ma’am, we are sorry for your loss.
What can we do to help you?
I found myself on my knees wrapped in my olive green throw holding my chest with no breath in me to inhale or exhale and no words to speak. I remember the police officers, one standing and the other kneeling by me and helping me to stand. I asked if I could excuse myself to get dressed and I would be right back. I remember being totally puzzled as to why, aside from the obvious reality of my world being utterly destroyed, the female officer was following me up the stairs to my bedroom. She informed me that was to make sure that I didn’t need anything, was okay and would not do any harm to myself.
I knew in that moment in the blink of an eye that the very picturesque, charmed life I had known was gone and forever changed. The life I had loved and treasured with John and our babies was shattered, demolished in the path of this unimaginable, unfathomable storm as I stood in the whirling path of its wreckage. Actually, I don’t know how I was physically standing because I felt as if I were dead. Part of me died in the moment of finding out my beloved Noah was gone.
John was my Noah and I was his Allie. The Notebook was “our movie,” and that’s what we called each other. We were supposed to be “forever,” but our love story was forever closed. There were no more pages to be written of our journey together. It was done! Just like that, by a knock on my door with the news of John’s passing. It felt like I had been pulled down by the crushing weight of a tidal wave. The magnetic pull of the storm’s current and undertow had not only knocked me down but pinned me down in this raging sea. I knew I would surely be engulfed and swallowed whole, lost and drowning.
In that moment of hearing the knock at my door and becoming aware of the storm, I didn’t know much, but one thing I knew for sure. Even though I couldn’t breathe and had no clue what was going to happen next or how I was going to do anything, I absolutely had to be there for my kids. I could have totally messed up if I weren’t there for our babies. I realized that what I do for our kids and family is how I would honor my beloved. This would have to be my mission now; I would put everything into the kids and make sure they were okay. They are what matters most now.
That night seemed as if it would never end. The officers implored me to reach out to someone to come stay with me. I was hesitant at first but called one of my best friends in New Hampshire. The officers stayed with me until she arrived. I started to face this unreal, raging storm of my life. Nothing was the same. As sure as John was gone, I died in that moment. A part of me was gone forever.
In the blink of an eye at the beginning of the third D of my journey, I had no words or notion of how to take my next breath in or out, never mind what to do, or what was to come next, knowing that John was gone from us, our lives, and the world. All I knew was that I was dead and my world had ended. I was now a widow, a solo, disabled mom living in a reality and world that weren’t mine. I didn’t ask for it or choose it. What choices could I make? Everything seemed impossible. John was gone and I was drowning, lost at sea in this engulfing storm of grief and loss. There was no way back to the shore. In the moment of learning of my beloved’s passing, I found myself in the most unfamiliar, unwanted, unexpected place in my life. A brutal shock. No words. No plan. I was overwhelmed. How could I go on?
Now my quest became learning how to go on without my beloved Noah. After the brutal shock of the first days of losing John, I found myself once again in the place of starting a new chapter. The process of having to find my way through grief and loss in this new reality with no words or plan left me completely overwhelmed. Quickly, I had to make the choice of what to do after this third knock at the door let in the raging storm that swallowed me up. Would I stay frozen in the doorway like a deer staring into the headlights of life? It had to make the choice of what to do after this third knock. Would I succumb to the crashing waves and drown? Or would I somehow dare to find my own way and write my own road map and instruction manual guiding me and the kids to travel forward, not just to survive but to thrive?