Page 130 - How We Lead Matters

The Prediction

When I was in my late fifties, a palm reader told me that my sixty-seventh
year would be an intensely spiritual time for me. My impressionable transla-
tion of that reading: I would die at age 67. From that moment on, I marked
each birthday by the number of years I had left before I turned 67 and
“crossed over.”
As my sixty-seventh year began, I was recovering from a hysterectomy.
A few months later I was back on the operating table for an emergency
appendectomy. In a backhanded sort of way, illness bestows a priceless gift,
doesn’t it? It reminds us of the fragile thread that tethers us. Every life has its
margins.
It was also the year that I painfully let go of my dream to pass on the
leadership of the family business to my son. It would be necessary to go out-
side the family to find my successor. I would not, after all, be the “bridge”
between the generations that I had hoped would mark my leadership.
I spent a great deal of time that year praying for strength and guidance.
The outpouring of support from family, friends, and even strangers was inspi-
rational and surprisingly “knowing.”
As I write this, I have thankfully just passed my sixty-eighth birthday.
My prayer this year is that I never forget the warmth and generosity of the
human spirit that carried me during this time.
Intensely spiritual? You bet.

Marilyn Carlson Nelson 113