This past month our neighborhood book club read “The Secret, Book & Scone Society” by Ellery Adams. I spent most Sunday afternoons the past few weeks on my striped red, blue, and yellow cushioned chaise reading under our oak tree in the triple digits listening to the cicadas and enjoying the scent of fresh mown grass in our backyard. I need fresh air to function so even in the 100s in Texas you’ll find me outside trying to catch a breeze sipping on a Wyler’s lite lemonade. It was so hot last Sunday I turned the sprinkler on and held my book out to keep the pages from soaking up the errant spray. I finished the book but a quote held my thoughts throughout the month and I could not shake it to save my life.

“You have to sink to the very bottom, my child, “the woman had whispered in her lullaby voice. “After that, you can push off with both feet and start swimming toward the surface. You’re strong. You can get there. But it’s going to hurt. You have to clean out the wound before it can heal. Let the stories be your antiseptic. Bear the pain now for the chance at a better tomorrow. Otherwise, you’ll repeat the mistakes that landed you in this bed.”

A little context for reference; a nurse is stating this to a burn victim as she lays in her hospital bed angry and depressed.

We all shared our favorite quotes from the book and after I shared mine, my neighbor looked at me and stated “oh I’ve been there”.

When she was 7 months pregnant her four year old daughter was taking her first big jump on the high dive. She was treading water in the deep end waiting for her to leap, and suddenly the full weight of her daughter landed on her. She pushed her daughter up to the surface and could see her Mother’s arms catching her as she sunk down down down and had no way to stop with the weight of the pregnancy. It hurt as her nose and lungs filled with water and she tried to hold her breath as best as she could. Down fifteen feet she dropped until she could push off of the bottom of the pool, only she couldn’t push off. She had no strength in her. Somehow, someway she got there and fought through pain and sheer fortitude and began to climb her way up through the water and out of the pool. No one came to grab an arm. No one came to lift her out. Everyone was otherwise occupied and in her isolation in a pool filled with children and families she dug her way through the water to the surface.

No one was going to be her daughter’s Mother. No one else would give birth to her son. She dug in deep and fought her way to the surface to survive.

You are strong. Where do you need to push off of with both feet so you’ll have a better tomorrow?