I have another “accident story” to share, one that has been told umpteen times in my family and is somewhat of a family joke. Obviously, it wasn’t a tragic/deadly accident or we wouldn’t find the humor in it. For my parents, it is a way to tease and reprimand themselves over a past error in judgment; for me, it is a way to remind myself why I should never try to follow in my brother Josh’s footsteps - literally!
It was February 1980 and I was 5 years old, Josh was 3 years old and we lived in Orem, Utah. Josh and I shared a room and we had bunk beds, which were a lot of fun! One night my mom had us strip the sheets and blankets off of our beds to be washed, so we took the sheets and piled them up in one spot, which just happened to be near the bunk bed.
Now, I don’t recall whose idea it was, but someone suggested jumping off of the top bunk onto the pile of sheets and blankets. And Josh, ever the daredevil, jumped at the chance (pun intended!) And he did a great job, completing perfect dismounts and landing right on target. He was a natural! As for me…well, I initially didn’t want to do this. I wussed out!
Now, this is when my dad enters the story. He watched Josh jumped off the bunk bed and make perfect landings and he was obviously one proud papa. So naturally he wanted his eldest son to participate. Dad will say that he teased and humiliated me into finally jumping off the bunk bed, but I don’t remember him being so monstrous. I think he was probably just playfully bullying me into doing this, even though I didn’t want to.
Maybe I had a premonition that this was not a good idea or I was just a big baby! Whatever the reason, I kept refusing until I finally gave into family peer pressure. I jumped…and made a safe, perfect landing into the pile of blankets and sheets. WRONG!!! Remember, this is an ACCIDENT STORY!!!
I remember that the moment I landed on the sheets I felt a sudden pain in my right foot. And when I tried standing up the pain flourished! I couldn’t stand, so I crumbled to the floor and began crying. And what did my dear, protective dad do? He told me to stand up, to shake it off and that I would be all right. But I couldn’t, and so I crawled around.
Now, this is when my mom enters the story. The way she remembers it she was a mean parent, refusing to believe that I had seriously hurt myself and that she demanded I stop faking an injury, get up and walk. I don’t remember her being so cruel, but I do remember that I kept crawling around and around for some time until Mom decided to take me to the doctor.
Me with my sweet sister Jaimee!
"Who wants to sign my cast?"
Ever have one of those great “told-you-so” moments in life, when you’re right and everyone else is wrong, and you get to gloat about it, lord it over people and just plain rub their noses in it?! I had that moment at the doctor, when the doctor confirmed that I had an injury - a broken right foot!! Let the healing begin! I got a nice cast on my leg and all the glory of being the center of attention! I loved it! And the fact that my parents were guilt-ridden, devastated about this was the perfect remedy to my pain. I say that now, but at the time I wasn’t malicious or embittered that no one believed me when I said I was hurt - I was just relieved that something was actually wrong. And I was a little embarrassed that my 3 year old brother didn’t get hurt, but me, the older brother, broke his foot on his first attempt!
This was a note written inside the front cover
This was during my year in kindergarten and I was out of school for a while. My teacher, Mrs. Adams, came to visit me one day and gave me a book as a gift.
Wow! As a kid I felt so special, so important, to have my teacher come to my house and give me a gift! It was thrilling! On another occasion Mrs. Adams visited and did a special profile of me, as she had done this for the other kids in class and didn’t want me to feel left out. How sweet and thoughtful!
And when I returned to school, with my cast on my leg (I had it on for about six weeks), I was the center of attention at school. I remember how the kids all swarmed around me, how they wanted to hear what had happened. Too bad I didn’t have a cool story to tell them and I wasn’t clever enough to come up with a good lie [I broke my foot when I tried to save my baby sister from falling off the roof of our house…no, wait - I broke my foot while playing football after scoring the winning touchdown! Yeah, that's what happened!]
Over the years this story has been shared with family and friends. My dad is usually the one telling the story and I wonder if he does this as some kind of penance. He describes himself in a mean, harsh way while joking about it, but I worry that he feels he was a bad father. My mom is the same way, although she won’t bring up the story but she will chime in and say what a terrible mother she was not to believe that her own son was hurt.
Well, I want to state for the record that I don’t blame anyone, I don’t hold any ill will against anyone (even Josh, for showing me up!) and obviously everything turned out all right because I’m walking just fine! So, to anyone who feels guilty about my accident, don’t worry! You’re off the hook! It’s all good!
And thanks for providing me an idea for a blog post!
Walk it off! ;)
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