"Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway." ~John Wayne
About 15 years ago, I found the above quote written in the back of my great-grandma’s bible. John Wayne was one of her favorite actors. I’m almost certain that my great-grandma (GiGi for short) saw every movie John Wayne ever made.
I'm thinking of GiGi today.
The last few weeks have been very challenging personally. When I find myself challenged, I always look back to my greatest leader, GiGi. She was a single mom who worked full-time cleaning hospital rooms, put herself through nursing school and started a small bakery business after she retired at the age of 72. I used to wonder how she was able to manage to handle so many challenges in her life and never seem weary. GiGi never seemed tired, sad or scared. She remained a rock through the most dismal of circumstances; handling each hurdle with humor and grace. I realize now, though she did seem very strong, she most definitely had feelings of fear, sadness and exhaustion. That’s why GiGi kept one of her favorite quotes in the back of one of her favorite books.
While having his third round of dialysis this afternoon, my husband quietly took my hand and thanked me for being so great about things. At first I thought “Great about what? I feel like a deer caught in the headlights of an on-coming truck. I’m tired and I don’t know what I’m going to use for strength in order to get through this. Sigh!” But what came out of my mouth was “It’s no big deal. We’ll get through this just like we get through everything else…I’ll order the food and you go buy the booze!” We both laughed. We both felt a little better about yet another seemingly impossible situation.
Okay, Okay…I have to confess! There was one more quote I found in the back of GiGi’s bible. It was the same flavor…just worded differently:
“When you find yourself going through Hell, keep going. If you stay there, your ass will surely burn.” I don’t know who said that one but the words really paint a good picture!
So when you feel like you are not being very brave, remember one of my GiGi’s favorite quotes.
