There are many different kinds of falls…

Falls from grace…

Falling off the wagon…

Falling water…

Falling in the literal sense of the word…

On the day of my 50th birthday, I did the latter. My husband and I were training for a half marathon in November and needed to get in a long run, I can’t remember how long now, so even though we had planned a trip out to Monterey for my birthday, on the morning of my birthday, we headed out to complete this run. Less than a mile from our house I tripped on the sidewalk and hit the ground hard, landing with my hand’s outstretched and I heard an ugly pop. It was not good. My hand immediately started swelling twice its size and in that moment I knew two things; first, I wasn’t going to Monterey for my 50th birthday, second, I wasn’t running a half marathon in November. Both were confirmed a few hours later after a visit to urgent care.

However, hand wrapped in a splint and wanting to salvage what I could of my 50th birthday I let my husband and daughter take me out to Casa De Fruta where we enjoyed the fall decorations and ate an early dinner. This was not what I had planned at all and I found myself for the first time that I could ever remember really really wishing I could go back in time and skip the run. That one run altered the plans I had for the next few months and even though it was awhile ago now, my hand still isn’t right. It hurts in cold weather and gets stiff in the morning, tired if I use it too much. My wedding ring didn’t fit for a year and the hand that was injured is still a little bit swollen at times.

When my daughter was little and fell, as little ones do, I’d tell her to get up, she’d be fine and she always was. Her skin tends to scar though so she has little marks here and there from some of her falls over the years. She now runs track and cross country.

In May, at the final track meet of the season, she fell. She fell in the 4X400. She was running as the anchor. She is fun to watch when she’s running well. She actually hadn’t been feeling well earlier that day but when she got that baton, she took off like a firework and was almost home about to give her final kick when she went down, along with a runner who had gotten too close. At first I didn’t know it was her, then I had two thoughts, Was she ok? What happened? My husband was the first to say it looked like the girl behind her clipped her. Mama Bear went into motion trying to get to my daughter but she was on the infield, luckily getting bandaged up with her coach. I asked her teammates whether or not they saw her get pushed, which was my initial concern. Finally, I was reunited with my daughter and asked her if she had been pushed and she said no, she felt her leg get kicked. When she fell, she fell mid-stride, so both her legs we up off the ground and with nothing to catch her she literally collapsed to the ground at near her top speed in a sickening plop. It’s hard to watch on video. She had several injuries, including at least one that wasn’t really apparent until a couple of weeks later when she tried to do a push-up and found she couldn’t. When she puts much pressure on the hand that hit first, the hand immediately is unhappy. She had cuts and an injury to her pelvis that still hurts nearly a month later. It was a hard fall. To add insult to injury the other runner didn’t go to check on her to see if she was ok, nor did she apologize. When mama bear wrote an email asking the principal to tell his coach to talk to his runner about checking on others, the coach apparently mentioned my daughter could have been blocking his runner from passing, like that would be a reason not to check on someone who was injured? The other girl was DQ’d so I doubt even he believed his own suggestion.

School districts are always afraid of law-suits, sadly. We are the farthest from those kind of people you could get. The other coach didn’t ask us about our daughter either, maybe he talked to our coaches? Maybe he didn’t realize the full extent of her injuries? Not sure, but I know one thing, when you cause an injury to another, even if it was an accident, you should always apologize and check on the person who was injured.

When she fell I hoped two things; that she was ok, that it wasn’t her fault. Our daughter is the sweetest girl you will ever meet. She is kind and loving. She almost always has a smile or a kind word for others and is genuine, even when others are rude, dismissive or just plain indifferent. Whether she’s singing in the choir or running with joy, or chatting with someone she’s met for the first time, her smile lights up a room. I think about Jesus telling his apostles they are the salt of the earth and light of the world in the gospel of Saint Matthew (5:14), our daughter is light. She has brought so much light to our lives. If the accident had been her fault, she would have had a difficult time with that. As it was she still felt badly that she had somehow let her teammates down. It was a bummer way to end her season.

She still smiled for pictures after. She still laughed and posed with her injuries with her coaches. It wasn’t until a few hours later and the next day that we realized she was a little more hurt than we hoped. She’s had two x-rays now for this injury, the last one just last week, for that hand that keeps hurting, the one she can’t do push-ups on, it’s not broken, worse she’s injured a ligament, those take longer to heal. She will be reminded of this fall every time that hand twinges or tweaks. She’ll recover but in the meantime, my heart hurts for her and my hand does too.

Chumbawamba in Tubthumping, says, “I get knocked down, but I get up again. You are never gonna keep me down.” Rocky says, “It’s not about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward.” There are a myriad of quotes about falling and getting back up again. I also think maybe sometimes people forget the other part, when you fall and get back up, you are changed. No one who falls is ever the same again. Whether it’s an injury that lingers or a memory that won’t leave you, you are never the same. It doesn’t matter if it’s a physical fall or a different type. Those clichés are supposed to be inspirational but where do they come from? Who provides the ultimate example of what you do when you fall? You can get back up but who are you now? How exactly do you move forward? No easy answers there, for anyone, I’m afraid and so I ask myself how did Jesus respond when he fell?

In my Catholic faith we have something called the Stations of the Cross. The Stations mark the journey of Jesus to his crucifixion. There are three falls. There are a total of 14 stations, at each station we remember and meditate on the journey of Jesus to the cross. Jesus falls for the first time in the 3rd station. We are encouraged to meditate on how Jesus continues to move forward, determined to carry out God’s plan for the salvation of the world. In the 7th station Jesus falls for the second time and we are encouraged to meditate on the sacrifice he is making for us. Finally, in the 9th station Jesus falls for the third time, weary and near death, our sweet Jesus gets back up and continues the Way of the Cross. We are encouraged to remember that he could have called out to his Father to ask for help but he accepted the Father’s plan. We are encouraged to remember we can’t travel the way forward without Jesus.

Can you be thankful for falls? I’m very thankful for Jesus, for his example of moving forward, even if it was to his death, in order to fulfill the Father’s plan. I mean who does that? Who would do that? Only someone who loved us more than life itself, Jesus. Falls can teach us and sure, most of the time people get back up. I got up and my daughter got back up and she even tried to keep running to the end of her race but when you get back up you aren’t the same as when you fell. You are either stronger and more determined that ever or you can end up regretful, sad and frozen in time. I want to always follow the example of Jesus and he promised that when you fall or when I fall He will always be right there by our side to help us move forward, we don’t have to do it alone and for that I can be grateful.

For the lessons falls teach us…I Give Thanks!

Running update: We have started our half marathon plan. I can’t say I’m 100% confident that we will be able to accomplish this goal but so far we’ve check all our runs off the training list. We are slow but we are moving forward.