Tough Enough

What do you do when you hear your 70-year-old mother copied your not-so-graceful face-plant move on the way to the mailbox at her rural home? And couldn't rise up out of the freezing slush and mud until she could drag herself to the front door over the course of an hour? This happened to the Binker Grandma this week and after a spike of severe concern at the news, my next thoughts were "I'm glad she had it in her." Fortunately, she didn't break anything... she has a hard enough time getting around on bad knees. Most of the pain came from pulled muscles and (avoiding getting on her bad knees) an hour of slithering through the mostly frozen yard. "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up" jokes aside, the cellphone Lil Bro gave her was left in the house and she saw no other neighbors outside to hear her cries for help. But she didn't yell for help. She just crawled home, shucked off her muddy coat, then sat on a heating pad to bring up her core body temperature. When I think about the worst case scenario, I'm proud that she had the drive to seek safety and warmth despite the pain instead of waiting for help that didn't seem to be forthcoming.

Sure, she's getting a little ribbing now for leaving the cellphone behind. And not yelling just in case her distant neighbors might be outside, but out of sight. But when I think about where I got the stubbornness to play football with a broken hand, ride halfway around a national park with a broken arm, and finish a 3-Gun match with a severely jammed hand, I think I might know where I got those genes. There might be a worse word than "stubbornness," but, hey, this is my Mom we're talking about.