Reaching down...

True Grit

“Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.”

                                  Mohammad Ali

         My friends, Ron and Fern, were in the path of the tornado Monday night. They made it out alive, but seven trees came down on their property, their home was damaged and an outbuilding was picked up and tossed on top of their cars. It’s one of those ‘can’t win for losing’ scenarios. Fern was supposed to have her chemo port taken out on Tuesday. She’s made it through that god-awful treatment and has a clean bill of health from her cancer, but now her house has been trashed by the randomness of nature. Some people would give up. Fortunately, Ron and Fern are made of sterner stuff.

          My grandmother, Mama, used to say, “What don’t kill you will make you stronger, gal.” There’s some comfort in that, I guess, but it sounds like a 50-50 sort of deal. We’d all like to live on easy street; few of us do. Certainly, Fern doesn’t. She’s the kind of person who just puts her head down and butts her way through whatever life throws at her. She and Ron foster-parented more than a dozen children, and adopted three. I remember Fern coming to church with little babies of all hues, and loving each and every one like it was her own. She hasn’t lived her life on the safe side, so when cancer struck, she took it in stride—just one more hurdle to jump. She doesn’t take time to lament the height of the hurdle; she just leaps and leaves the rest to God.

         I think Mama and Ali were correct; when you’ve reached down into your own soul and found the grit to face defeat, you know you have it in you to win. It helps to have a few models of success along the way—not the Mitt Romney type of success so much as the Fern type. It will be an honor to go out to Trussville and help her butt her way through that tornado damage.

                                  In the spirit,

                                  Jane