Return to Articles Index

Rusty's Ramblings

The other day my girls and I were on our way to choir practice. Kari sings in the Jr. Choir at church. On the way there the girls were talking about their grades. Kristin, who is in 3rd grade was proud of the fact she had earned all "A's". Kari who is in 5th grade also earned straight "A's". However, she mentioned that she had to re-take her Tai-Kwon-Do test. Kari goes to a school that offers Tai-Kwon-Do as the phys-ed program. She said the other kids that had passed had been jumping around, hooting, and hollering when they earned the stripe for their belt. I asked Kari why she didn't get her stripe? She told me she had needed to sit out a portion of the test. I said "So you failed?" She said "No, I didn't fail. I had to sit because I went low and didn't feel good." I said "So you failed." "No daddy" she says, as if trying to explain to a block of cheese "My blood sugar went low so I had to sit."

At that point it started to dawn on this neanderthal cheesehead how she looks at this disease. Time that passes while she is feeling lousy because of diabetes doesn't count. Remember when you were a kid playing with others and something happened that you didn't like. You called for a "Do-Over".

Well my daughter has decided to call for real life "Do-Overs". When this finally hit me and I thought back I realized that she has been calling "Do-Overs" for a while. She refuses to let this disease beat her at anything. And even when it does through highs and lows she won't acknowledge it. She calls a "Do-Over". I suppose if I were better educated or smarter I might say that she's in denial. Fortunately I'm not that smart. She doesn't deny the disease, she's decided that her life will go on, on her terms in spite of diabetes.

I guess we can all learn something by watching how our precious children cope with this disease. It breaks our hearts that they have to, and makes us fiercely proud that they can.

God bless our children and
thank him for making them so smart,

Rusty

top