Sometimes, the littlest, most insignificant events in our lives can lie dormant or forgotten, like a seed scattered in the wind, only to bloom, and be appreciated years later. 

In 1985, six years into my career at Abbott Laboratories, I was involved in the package development of (yet another) diagnostic test kit for the hematology business unit. I had worked on several before this and would work on several after, and at the time, this was just another deadline to meet. It was the first diagnostic test kit approved by the FDA to detect the presence in whole blood of  HTLV-1, the newly discovered class of retrovirus. There was a global race competing to be first to the market. The opportunistic virus, was implicated in the spread of several diseases. Identifying the virus would eventually lead to discovery of the infectious agent responsible for AIDS. Screening for it was impossible, posing a real and serious threat of contaminating the world's blood supply. As a result of this urgency and determination of all those involved, the product sped from its initial development to full FDA approval and launch in a record eight months.

This project was also my introduction to cold-chain packaging, rudimentary as it was. The finished kits had to be over-packed and transported internationally in a pallet-sized insulated container in order to protect them from environmental extremes. I was responsible for qualifying that packaging.

Thanks to the efforts of many, the product launched on time, with great success and publicity. I paid little attention, having already become deeply engrossed in the next project.

Dozens of projects later, in 1997, on a business trip to Washington D.C., I took advantage of some free time and visited the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. I meandered through the displays, reveling in the artifacts that have become vital relics of our nations heritage. By late afternoon my gluttony for history led me to the Health & Medicine wing, where a familiar object caught my eye. In a small, dark gallery entitled "Significant Medical Advances of the Twentieth Century", between Jonas Salk's story of the polio vaccine and the Jarvic-7 artificial heart, was the Abbott HTLV-1 Diagnostic Test Kit.

I stepped closer, and began to inspect each of the kits components and recalled how, at one time or another, I was involved in their development. The kit was a thermoformed clam-shell made of HIPS. The open cell foam insert was 1.9 lb/ft3 density polyether. The reagent bottles were 12 ml, HDPE, the ones with the .031" wall and 10% zinc sterate. The closures, 20 mm with a 1-3/4 turn modified buttress thread and an F-217 flow-in liner. The reagent labels contained S-246 hot melt adhesive to prevent flagging. It seemed a little surreal to me that they were locked away behind glass and on display at the Smithsonian Institution. A woman visitor leisurely approached me as she gave the display case a cursory review. I glanced at her, and with an enthusiastic grin I proudly murmured, "I worked on that." She gave me a startled "okay crazy man" look and scurried away. I realized my hands and elbows were now planted firmly on the glass, my nose millimeters from the case. "No, really!" I shouted as I heard her footsteps quicken and fade.

The experience made me realize that the tapestries that comprise our lives are unique and that every stitch of every thread holds its own importance.

While we focus our attentions and aspirations on life's bigger goals like earning a degree, raising a family, or retiring at fifty, it's what happens in between these milestones that often carries the greatest influence. Life, after all, is what happens to us while we're busy planning our future. We convince ourselves that we can script it in an effort to parlay our happiness and increase our fulfillment, but it never turns out the way we planned. I never planned to be a cold-chain packaging engineer - but here I am. We constantly readjust, recalibrate, realign and re-prioritize - and no matter what our calling, many of life's most cherished rewards remain hidden in plain sight in the day-to-day details. We just have to know to look for them.