This year alone I have (1) killed an eight foot rattle snake, (2) turned off an exploding gas water heater, (3) caught and killed a mouse in my living room, (4) shooed out five birds from my living room, (5) captured a lizard next to my bed and released it into the wild, (5) killed four ten inch lizards, (6) killed far too many scorpions, (7) hiked for eight hours up a river with four children and (8) told off a woman who was rude to my children.
During the situations involving wild animals especially I am usually crying and shouting, "where's your dad?!?!" but, nonetheless, I handle them like a boss. I was daydreaming at church today (during my calling in Primary (I was obviously very naughty in the preexistence)) thinking about some of these situations and how being responsible for other peoples well-being can make you bold--better than you are without that responsibility. That sometimes you face horrible, terrifying situations because you know nobody else can, or will, and it must be done.
Take that flipping snake for instance. Rattlesnakes are territorial and I knew that if I didn't kill it--it may very well have come back tomorrow to bite my Jackie. So shooing it away was not an option--it needed to die and, at the time, I was the only one around to do it. So like a boss--in shorts and flip flops--I took its head off with a shovel.
It's been about twelve years since I became a mother and it's really only in looking back that I see how far I have come. I'm happy with the things I've accomplished; proud of where I am in this moment, which isn't to say I'm where I'd like to be, but I've grown. I'm content with the progression. It's reflections like these where I wax serious and feel the urgency to teach my children: courage, strength, independence, wisdom, compassion, charity, kindness, even. . . thriftiness (my enemy). I know that the best lessons aren't taught but rather seen. So I carry on everyday, more committed to trying to
be these things than I was yesterday.
