This afternoon while I was in a meeting my daughter sent me a text message that I didn’t see until some hours later. She was asking for help with a financial and transportation challenge that needed to be resolved in order for her to complete a trip she’s taking on Friday. It seemed pretty urgent, so when I finally got back to her a few hours later she was already on her way to resolving the situation.
“Here now, do you need me?” I texted her. “Well, I’ll always need you (smiley face)…I’m okay. I love you mommy.” She texted back. When I asked her if her father was going to pay for it her transport, she replied, “No, I will. Decided I need to figure more things out on my own.”Hold that thought.
Tonight I finally decided that I needed to call my life insurance company about a billing glitch they’d made that was going to create problems for me. They have very short hours so I was pleased that I remembered to call before 6 p.m.–usually I am still on the Beltway at 6 p.m. When I picked up the phone to call, there was no dial tone. No dial tone? I sighed, shaking my head at the annoyance and having one of those, “Can a sista catch a break” kind of moments. I walked through the house trying the phones, making sure they were hung up, all to no avail. No dial tone. I went online to the cable company’s website (they also provides my phone service), went to the troubleshooting page and clicked on the “No Dial Tone” button on the page. What followed was about 45 minutes worth of “troubleshooting” that included several trips outside dealing with an external phone box. At one point during this process (as I was outside loosening the screw so I could open the panel) I stopped and thought to myself, “I should write about this in my blog tonight, about how I plunge in and do whatever needs to be done. When I need to get it done, I do it myself.”
I’m grateful once again for the gift, skill, talent, whatever you want to call it of perseverance. I have to think I have buckets of it. When I reflect back over the past two and a half years, and even across the span of my life up to this point, I have drawn upon my innate resilience and powered through whatever the difficulties were. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t sail through the difficulties, I labor through them. I push through. I stand strong in the midst of them. I don’t quit. I cry a lot, I rage against god, I whine and complain. But in the end , I pull myself up onto my feet (figuratively and sometimes literally) and keep myself moving. From a simple hassle like dealing with no dial tone on my phone, to more serious matters, I persist and do what needs to be done. I think it’s probably hardwired into my DNA or something.
I recall a conversation I had with my brother some 18 months ago while I was in the thick of some major life drama. I wrote about it in my blog that night:
“You know how we are…” and he saluted me, just like the photograph we each have of my father saluting. The photo is situated on a shelf directly across from my bed–I see it when I first wake up and it is one of the last things I see before I go to sleep. “We don’t give up,”he reminded me,then shrugging went on to say,“whether we like it or not, we keep going. It’s who we are.”
My parents had it, as did their parents. I have it, and I see it in my children. Michal’s statement that she needs to “figure more things out on [my] own,” is a testament to her own sense of perseverance and determination. One of my colleagues at work who is doing research on such things calls it “grit,” and while there’s a very descriptive, academic-sounding definition, the bottom line is that people who have grit persist, they persevere against odds and obstacles, and in many cases they not only survive, they excel.
So yes I am grateful to have grit, which the dictionary defines as, “courage and resolve; strength of character.” Sometimes my strength fails me and I want to sit down right in the middle of the drama, to roll over and face the wall, to simply stop. But the wellspring of hope or some related emotion bubbles up giving me enough energy to work up to my knees and from my knees to my feet until I’m standing. And after a moment of standing on those wobbly legs getting my balance back I’m ready to walk on, to keep on going. And for that I am exceedingly grateful.
Dad Salutes
