Hi Mini-Lori,
Your Most Traumatic Experience Ever
One of your most traumatic experiences was when you were in a sledding accident while you were tobogganing with your father. In the wintertime, since your father worked the graveyard shift, he’d take you sledding after school while your mother was working during the day. Mark was also with you and your father. One afternoon, they were both watching you sled down a small slope.
Unfortunately, you decided that you would go head first, rather than feet first. You lose control of the sled as it increases in speed. Unable to steer, you crashed head first into a Merry-go-round. All you remember is seeing the Merry-go-round, but the rest is blank. You have no memory from seconds before impact until the X-ray room at the hospital.
What you didn’t know is that Mark has always felt that he nearly killed you by letting you sled down the hill, head first on the sled. When he tells the story to friends, he always starts off, “The day I nearly killed my little sister…”
Poor guy. Mark remembers being sent home by dad. Even your mother didn’t know that Mark was there until he finally shared his guilt with you and your mother during last year’s Thanksgiving vacation.
Mark and Lori in 1964
Lori and Mark in 2008
Don’t Go Into the Light
All you remember after the accident is waking up in the emergency room with your mother by your side. The X-Ray room table was stainless steel and cold. You remember the X-ray tech place you face down on the table as they took multi-views of your nose to see if it was broken. You protested because it hurt your face, but your mother made sure you were comfortable.
Thank goodness, your nose wasn’t “broken,” but as an adult, you’ll realize that your nose is flawed. Your Christmas pictures from this season will look silly because you have two black eyes and a metal splint covering your nose. You wide white tape securing the metal splint across your face. Frankly, it’s amazing that you survived this accident. But this is the year you will get Barbie’s Camper and Kitchen that you will play with for hours.
Ninja Mom
This is also the time when the family pet chipmunk goes rogue by escaping from its cage. Your chipmunk crawls into the stove and various other places, driving your mother crazy. Your brother and father fail to capture it, leaving your mother to take matters into her own hands. One evening, mother places the chipmunk’s cage one foot outside the living room, at edge the dining room wall. She places fresh food in the cage. She ties one end a long piece of string to the door to the cage, and then tapes the other to the living room wall, five feet above the cage. After setting the trap, mother also places a sharp pair of scissors by the string.
Hours later while you, your brother, mother, and father are watching The Johnny Carson show, you hear the chipmunk slowly walk across the kitchen floor into the dining room. It pokes its head to see if we’re looking. Mother motions everyone to be still. The chipmunk proceeds to walk into its cage, then starts eating and drinking. Mother, channeling her hidden Ninja skills, silently walks to the string, picks up the scissors, cuts the string, and BAM! The cage door slams! The chipmunk doesn’t know what happened to it, but I do. Two words: Ninja Mom. I mean Ninja MacGyver!
Action Items
- Be safe. Fortunately, you don’t become too paralyzed with fear in play. However, you do have an aversion to other winter sports. You refuse to learn downhill skiing because if you don’t have brakes, then what’s the point. You’ll only cross-country ski, but that’s it. You learn safety first when it comes to physical activities.
- Be a risk taker. You will be risk averse because of the accident. You’ll always weigh the cost and benefits of any event before you determine whether you’ll plunge in. Even when you do plunge in, it’s not head first. It’s one toe, then two toes, but never with both feet. Mini-Lori, remember, if the thing you’re considering can’t kill you, then it may be worth trying. Not every risk-taking event is like a head-first ride on a red toboggan, hurling out-of-control towards a Merry-go-round.
- Use your hidden super power, given to you by your mother. Ninja Mom/MacGyver skills are part of your DNA. It will be useful in a crisis, especially when your next gerbil or hamster escapes its cage or playing the game, Mousetrap.
- Stay away from red toboggans. Send your brother bottles of Le Rêve Blanc de Blancs and Domaine Carneros Brut to share with him on Thanksgiving just as a reminder that you adore him and that he’s still your big brother.
Similar Posts:
