Many of you are familiar with the Yiddish phrase, Mann tracht und Gott lacht—“Man plans and God laughs.” Or as the late Beatle, John Lennon, put it: Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.

Isn’t that the truth? How many times have you found yourself saying, “I never meant for this to happen.” You didn’t intend to arrive late for the important meeting. You didn’t purposely back into the parked car. But it happened, and now the task at hand is coping with what went wrong, learning from the experience, and going forward.

Such was my experience when one, now regrettable, decision changed my entire summer, and impacted my family’s life for several months.

On a lovely Shabbat afternoon in June, I decided to forego a nap, and instead I went outside to join my two sons and a friend in a game of two-on-two basketball in the driveway. Boy, I wish I could return to that moment and undo what happened. Wouldn’t life be great if we had that power?

As many of you now know, after enjoying some fun exercise and time spent with my children, I proceeded to suffer a complete rupture of my Achilles tendon. As a result, I had surgery three days later, spent two weeks unable to bear weight on my left foot, six weeks in a cast, and am currently in the midst of what I’m told will be a long recovery period. I have learned to adjust to a number of temporary changes in my life — walking slowly with a bit of pain, parking in the handicapped spot, and physical therapy. But if you ask me how I’m doing, my answer is: “better today than yesterday.”

More importantly, I have learned a lot, including:

1. My family—Naomi, Gabriel and Jonathan—are even more special than I already believed. They each rose to the occasion by taking great care of me, and assuming added responsibilities around the house.

2. I am blessed with skilled and compassionate doctors and medical professionals.

3. I am surrounded by a wonderfully supportive community. I am eternally grateful to all of you who called, sent cards, tributes and meals.

4. Even though simple tasks became more difficult and time consuming, I found I had the inner strength, both physical and emotional, to do the best I could. I realized that nobody is truly disabled; it’s just that some of us are blessed with different abilities than others.

5. I am discovering patience I never knew I had. Life for me now moves a little bit more slowly. This describes the pace of both my walking, and my recovery. But no matter how long it takes, I always reach my destination.

6. While handicapped parking and power-operated doors are a blessing, there remain too many difficult to access doors and parking lots, and we still have work left to do to make the world fully accessible to those who travel on wheels, or walk unsteadily.

7. I have a new understanding of two of the early morning blessings from the siddur: roka ha’aretz al hamayim—“God spreads out the land upon the water” and asher heikhin mitz’adei gaver—“God guides the steps of humanity.” These blessings are to be recited in recognition of the first time each day that one places both feet on the ground and takes a few steps. After not being able to perform these simple activities, I now fully appreciate how miraculous it is to be able to do so.