Whoa!

Whoa! That's what my grandmother would say to the car she was learning to drive, out on the prairie. I can just imagine how she planted her right foot down as hard as a size 5 foot could be planted on that pedal, hanging on to the wheel, turning sharply to avoid those fence posts, then quitting. Getting out, slamming the door behind her and right then and there, announcing she would NOT, under any circumstances drive that thing again. She kept her word. She did not drive in all the time I knew her. Grandma was not a quitter, but she knew what she could and could NOT do.  When the tough things came along, her feisty self stood against them, straight. (I can't say tall, because she was less than 5 feet high). Someone once told me, when I was a young girl, that she climbed up onto the top roof of a small building on her farm, after a strong prairie wind blew the whole thing off, onto the side of the building. She pulled the whole thing back up onto the building and nailed it into place. It didn't sail off in the next wind that's for sure. I don't know if that story is myth or truth. All I know for sure, is that it inspires, as does my mother.


A rough wind blew into her days a couple of days ago. It did knock the wind completely out of her sails for just a moment or two. But, she called again today. She's collected her friends, (some call her family) and they are standing by, encouraging her, helping her change course, just enough to stay strong and flex, face into the wind, one more time. Again.. an inspiring woman to take a life-lesson from. Thanks Mom.