Sooners

Sometimes health setbacks are so strong they make you feel like you’ve been blown down the road.  Getting knocked down with an illness is especially humbling which quickly reminds you you’re neither invincible nor perfect.  The key to living through setbacks, though, is getting up off the ground no matter how hard or how many times you have fallen.  The best role models for recovering after getting slammed are Sooners.   Following the 1999 tornado which tore through Midwest City, OK  Diane and I went into the hospital to help people injured in the storm. One of the patients was an old man with a 2 by 4 piece of wood stuck through him who had driven to the ER for treatment.  I imagined he’d seen a tornado or two in his lifetime.   It made me feel kinda of sheepish bitching about the sliver in my foot I got on the patio deck.  Without a doubt, more people need a Sooner attitude to turn the corner.

Falling down is still humbling no matter how old we are, but you still gotta do a Sooner and crawl up on your own.  When I was in 1st grade at St. Mary’s School my friend John Rayno brought to show-and-tell a large glass jar filled with crickets.  Right before his big speech someone spilled water on the floor, so when John got up he slipped on the water, tossed the jar of crickets in the air which smashed on the floor.  John rebounded like a champ and joined all of us giggling at Sister Jerome going nutso about the crickets jumping everywhere.  Similarly, when I had my spleen taken out in 1987 for Hodgkin’s Disease every little movement, especially laughing, shot spasms through me so bad I had to bury my face in a pillow to dull the pain.  Once again someone had spilled water on the floor, but this time an older hospital volunteer marched in carrying a big bouquet of flowers for me, slipped on the floor and flew up in the air just like John Rayno.  Even though I was suffocating myself in the pillow, she got up, dusted herself off and wished me well.  Just like a Sooner.

Getting knocked down often is painful, but what’s worse is slipping when everyone’s watching; especially in today’s hyper critical world where success has many fathers and failure just one.  Regardless, you need to pull yourself up otherwise you’ll be down permanently.  Yeah, each new time it’s more painful and filled with jagged scars;  unfortunately you might even have fewer people betting on you (life insurance companies dive out windows when my name blinks on the screen).  So take a long lesson from Sooners,  no matter the disaster, who always say “we’ll rebuild.” Their key to surviving is driving through the pain, just like the old Sooner man in Midwest City.  Trust me, if you can drive yourself to the ER with a 2 by 4 sticking out of you, you’re attitude will keep you in the mix for a long time.  So dust yourself off and start acting like a Sooner rather then later and you’ll beat a lot of odds. Slainte.