Destiny can confine us but it doesn’t have to define us
Taking the cosmic view, we all are only on center stage for a moment, sliding past the eyes like the sudden shifting of light and shadow.
So no matter what fate throws our way, we have to learn to live with it and make the best of it. Indeed, there is nothing heroic about feeling sorry for yourself.
Yes, the coronavirus is a curse we all could do without. But the next time you pout about having to wear a mask and social distance, consider the life of Dianne Odell. The story of her life and death takes your breath away.
All of us are subjected to destiny.
Destiny was terribly unkind to Dianne.
But she never allowed a life confined to a 750-pound iron lung to leave her with the thinnest shadow of life. She spent nearly six decades in that ugly, lifesaving contraption after contracting polio at age 3.
The next time you think you’re having a bad day, just ponder the enormity of what it must have been like for her to be tethered to that machine.
But while her lungs were crippled by polio, Dianne Odell had a locomotive’s heart. And an iron will.
She didn’t just languish because her body was imprisoned for life. She lived her life with rigor and vigor — earning a high school diploma, taking college courses and writing a children’s book on a voice-activated computer.
But her life came to a haunting end at age 61 in May 2008 when a power failure rendered her iron lung impotent.
Her family was unable to get an emergency generator working after the
So no matter what fate throws our way, we have to learn to live with it and make the best of it.
power outage knocked out electricity to their home.
Dianne Odell’s life was cruelly defined at beginning and end by a calamitous chain of circumstances.
I trust her soul is breathing easily and deeply in heaven.
Mike Zielinski, a resident of Berks County, is a columnist, novelist, playwright and