Sweet & Weak
Roughing it
Sometimes life throws you a curve ball and you have to dig deep inside to muster the strength to go on and overcome sudden hardship. It is in those times, when situations look hopeless, that families can find a way to come together and triumph. With gritty determination, teamwork, and good old fashion gumption, my family came out on top this morning smelling like vanilla. That’s right, vanilla. That is because this morning’s metaphorical Everest was a 5:55 power outage and we held on tight and reached the summit together by 6:30 thanks to flashlight apps on our phones and a cabinet filled with half burned scented candles.
I will not make light of it (horrible pun), it is a difficult thing to look into your child’s eyes and explain to her that “No sweetie, I can’t turn on a kid show while we finish getting ready.” With holiday scents released from our flickering light sources wafting through our humble abode, my brave little girl found the strength to occupy her time by sitting in the dark playing Angry Birds on the iPad. She was scared and didn’t understand why the sink would work but the lights were dead. It is in moments like this that a parent can take advantage of a real learning opportunity and share a pint of ice cream with his little ones for breakfast, explaining what life was like for people long ago.
I was truly proud of the resourcefulness exhibited this morning as we made the best of things. Make-up was applied by candle light and moose and hairspray saved the day as the flat-iron lied impotent on the counter. Lunches were packed and coffee was replaced with caffeinated soda (even if it was a hard pill to swallow realizing the refrigerator wouldn’t drop the ice directly into our cups and we had to scoop it out with our bare hands). Our problem solving was at its zenith as we continued to find a way where there seemed to be no way. Garage door openers were pushed out of habit and the fear of our cars being stuck was quickly washed away as we remembered to pull down on the red hangy down thing to open the garage manually. In a stroke of luck we even knew where a key was to our house so we were able to lock up behind ourselves to hopefully protect our possessions once the inevitable looting began.
As we drove down the streets of our dark subdivision you couldn’t help but feel a sense of community as parents escorted their kids to the bus stops flashlights in hand. Somehow we all managed to make it out alive. It may have taken longer to update our statuses relying solely on 3G instead of wi-fi, but we did it and we learned a few things along the way. I like to think that our forefathers would have been proud of us this morning for pulling up our bootstraps and exhibiting the kind of determination this great country was founded upon. In fact, I could hardly wait to share our story of overcoming hardship and roughing it like a real pioneer as soon as I got to Starbucks.
Sometimes a morning that starts off pretty weak has a way of turning out sweet after all.
Simon C. Holland 