Brave Enough To Be Bliss

While I’m quite sure I didn’t tell him how much it meant to me for him to come to my cross country races, I do recall asking him specifically to come to a race that was only about 15 minutes from where he lived. I thought for sure he’d be at that one. I remember watching for him to arrive, but pretty soon it was race time and he still wasn’t there. Just in case he was running late and would be there at the finish line, I ran my hardest and was hoping to make him proud. I think I placed 14 th and they gave the top 15 individual finishers medals at that particular race, so in my mind, he could have even seen me as somewhat successful. Two of the cross country moms must have noticed I looked upset, and while I don’t remember what they said or if I acknowledged why, they were kind, warm and caring to me. I don’t know if I ever thanked them, but when I wrote this, I reached out to their kids and let them know how much their moms meant to me.

Even though he hadn’t seen me at that race, I still had my senior year, so I trained hard all summer , even running a 10k race with a friend. She was the lead runner and very good in other sports as well. She was always so nice to me, which I found puzzling since I wasn’t talented like she was. So, when she asked if I wanted to run the 10k with her, I was honored. Of course, I couldn’t keep up with her, but I did finish the 6.2 mile race. After I finished, she was so excited for me that it felt like something I should be proud of, so I tried to feel that way instead of embarrassed that I finished so far behind her. One week before the first meet, we ran time trials at practice to see where everyone was. I was thrilled with my performance. I had improved a lot with training all summer, so I was poised for a strong senior season. That night after practice, I went to the weight room, which overlooked the volleyball court where the girls were still practicing. Several other teammates were in there and as they finished up and said goodbye, I thought about leaving too, but decided to stay and do one more set. Having perform ed well, I wasn’t about to start slacking now.

I was on a leg extension machine, seated in an upright position without anything supporting my back. My legs were under the pads, and I lifted them straight out in front of me. About halfway through the lift, I felt something snap in my lower back and my legs immediately dropped and the weights came crashing down. I sat there for a minute because I was in pain but figured it would pass. One of my male teammates came walking back through and asked if I was OK, and I said yes, not wanting to admit how much pain I was in and hoping he didn’t see the tears in my eyes. The longer I sat there the more it hurt, but I thought maybe I just needed to stand up. I tried to move my legs out to the sides from under the pads, but I couldn’t because the pain was excruciating. So, I just sat there. I heard the volleyball practice wrapping up so figured some of the girls would be coming up to lift. Fortunately they did but by that time, I was actually crying because I was in so much pain. As soon as they saw me, they yelled for their coaches to come up and shortly after they called for an ambulance.

For someone who prefers to blend in, this would have been torturous, but I was already in so much physical pain that for once I wasn’t even all that embarrassed. I still remember audibly crying out when they tilted me back to lay me down on the stretcher. That was the worst physical pain of my life to that point. At the hospital, they told me that since my muscles were stronger than the two small connecting bones on either side of my vertebrae, one had broken and the other had cracked. I was in the hospital for several days, wore a brace that went around my midsection and down through my lower back, and was home from school for a week or so. I wasn’t able to run again until the week before our regional meet and I was limited in how

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