Small+Moments+Examples

//"You are. You are brave."//
===//I was not. I, Salamanca Tree Hiddle, was afraid of lots and lots of things. For example, I was terrified of car accidents, death, cancer, brain tumors, nuclear war, pregnant women, loud noises, strict teachers, elevators, and scads of other things. But I was not afraid of spiders, snakes, and wasps. Phoebe, and nearly everyone else in my new class did not have much fondness for these creatures.//=== ===//But on that day, when a dignified black spider was investigating my desk, I cupped my hands around it, carried it to the open window, and set it outside on the ledge. Mary Lou Finney said, "Alpha and Omega, will you look at that!" Beth Ann was white as milk. All around the room, people were acting as if I had singlehandedly taken on a fire-breathing dragon.//===

//What I have since realized is that if people expect you to be brave, sometimes you pretend that you are, even when you are frightened down to your very bones.//
==AS my boots clunked over the uneven rocks at the end of the trailhead, I was only thinking about one thing: water. I was thirsty. I had just hiked the 4 miles to the top of the trail to the waterfall at the end. What a great day for a hike. I couldn't ask for a better birthday, or so I thought.==

Mount Rainier is the fourth highest peak in the United States, and it's only a few hours' drive from Seattle, where I was living at the time. Real mountaineers climb it every year using technical gear like ice axes, ropes, and harnesses, but like most hikers on the mountain, I was only up for a day trip, admiring the valleys of wildflowers and craggy exposed rock formations that peppered the hiking trails.

My friends and I had split up. Several of them had taken trails that took them to the highlands and we would meet up with them on the way back down, but my friend Rob and I really wanted to take the waterfall trails, which were supposed to be well worth the steep climb. We were not disappointed.

After a couple hours, the trail opened up to an enormous stony cliff overflowing with a magnificent, thundering waterfall. We were hot and sweaty from the warm July day and the taxing exercise, and the cool spray of the falls sent up a mist that invited us in. We picked our way across the rock and stooped to dip our hands and faces into the water.

Rob and I explored the rocks around the water and took pictures. He was living in New York City at the time, and was thrilled that his trip to Washington gave him such spectacular views, but we did need to meet up with our friends and I was very thirsty, so we turned to leave and head back when we heard the ominous sound of rock crumbling, followed by a man's voice yelling half-heartedly, "Look out."

I think I felt it before I saw it. Something heavy and hard, knocking my feet out from under me. I felt my body being swept over onto my side, then a sharp and persistent pain in my ankle.

Rob rushed over to me, asked if I was okay, and I managed, wincing to stand up. Soon a man came down from climbing the cliffs above. He had knocked down a small boulder when he was climbing, and it had hit my legs and knocked me down.

"Are you okay?" he asked, embarrassed. I told him I was fine, but thirsty, and he gave me some water and quickly scurried away back down the trail. Later, I thought he had probably been afraid I would sue him for being careless, but at the time I was glad to see him leave. My foot hurt, and suddenly, I wanted only to be home. It was beginning to dawn on me, that to get there, I would have to somehow get back down the mountain on this ankle.

Looking back, I am glad Rob was with me. He was a sponsored skateboarder, and he'd had the typical string of bumps, bruises, broken bones, and sprained ankles that were common among skaters. Making it clear he would not be a sympathetic ear, he told me it was probably a sprained ankle, and to toughen up and start heading down. Step by excruciating step, I made my way down the trail slowly. We finally came across our other friends, on a small bridge near a bubbling stream. Still in a lot of pain, it seemed like a good idea to dip my foot in the icy water. It was then that I made the mistake of removing my boot.

Immediately, my ankle swelled to the size of a softball. I was mortified. It was so grossly oversized, there was no way I could get my boot back on it. Now, I would have to hike the rest of the way with one foot bare. Great.

It was about halfway down that we came upon a ranger. It turned out, someone had radioed that a hiker had been injured, and he immediately surmised that I was the hiker. Actually, I wasn't the hiker he'd been summoned for; she came upon us some time later, but when she saw my injury, she figured hers wasn't that bad. She headed down without help. Despite my pleas of embarrassment at requiring rescue, the ranger insisted that I not walk down, and he made me wait for his team of rescue volunteers.

How embarrassing. Here I was, on my BIRTHDAY, with all of my friends, being strapped into a stretcher. I learned several things in this process. First of all, the stretcher is called a "litter". Second, it requires its passenger to be strapped in, with arms crossed in front of you like a corpse, which doesn't make you feel safe at all, by the way. As if that didn't put me in the mindset of one about to die, to make

AS I walked, I thought back
Mrs. Preston's Small Moment:

Breaking my leg(s)--funny

Mount Rainier boulder story--singing to me--funny

Riding my bike--about me, warm

Emma losing her first tooth

Bringing my dog home as a puppy--warm

Christmas morning with Emma--funny and warm

The moment when I found out that the towers were attacked--sad

The moment I met Matthew--warm

Trying it out:

My eyes squint in response to the abrupt and glaring sunlight as I leave the cool, dimly lit hospital entryway. Once I've adjusted my vision, I pause to take in the beautiful blue sky, full of hope and promise. The weather is warm and it is early morning. I've seen enough summers to know today is going to be a very warm day. A pool day, perhaps. I love to go to the pool. Even though I am 5 months pregnant, I am not too proud to put on a swimsuit and hang out in the hot summer air.

But thoughts of a pool today are fleeting. I know there is no chance I'll go swimming today. I have other things to think about. I have to begin the miserable process of letting go of my mother.

Just moments before, we left her body in the clean, white hospital wing in the Intensive Care Unit of the Creighton Medical Center. Death doesn't look in real life the way it does in movies.