He stumbled out of bed trying to make his movements swift and silent. I burrowed back into the bed still freezing from the realization that most of my covers had been removed. Pulling them tight up to my neck I squeezed my eyes shut in hopes of more sleep to come. Instead the flashlight from his phone shone right in my eyes as his frustrated fingers fumbled a zipper. Exasperated he took the suitcase with him to the hall and left us again in the darkness of the early morning thinking we were all still asleep in our beds.
The twins slowly wakened and I called them over into my bed to try to get a few more minutes of quiet. As we lay there I heard the soft saintly voice of my wise, owl friend. I could hear her comforting tone wander through the halls into our room.
“It’s okay if you fall you know, that means you are doing it right. You are going to fall lots of times; that is the right way to do it.”
And I realized as I was trying to get a few more moments rest, she was up and helping to send off our husbands and older children to the slopes. My two oldest children were going skiing for their very first time. And instead of being ungrateful or feeling bad I wasn’t out there, in that moment I was most grateful that my dear wise owl friend was. She said the best thing to my daughter to calm her for her first day of skiing. She said things better than I ever would have.
She continued to console her saying, “You are going to do great! They really should call skiing lessons falling lessons because you do a lot of that on the first day.”
I never would have thought to say that and my heart is so full knowing that my daughter heard those words before she ventured out to her first day of skiing.
They really should just call it all falling lessons because really that is what we do all the time in life. It is the how we get up that matters the most.
Here’s to falling well and standing up even better,
Very well said Michelle!