Student Learns Valuable Lesson

It's said that you don't really know a person until you get in their shoes and walk around in them. For the most part this is a true statement; however, I would like to take it a little further. In my opinion you really don't know how a person lives until you walk around in their shoes. Last semester I had an accident that forced me to adhere to that old saying.

The Saturday before school started last fall, Aug. 25, I was rollerblading with a friend and took a rather nasty fall attempting something I should not have tried. As a result of my foolishness I broke some pretty important bones.

For those of you familiar with anatomy, which I wasn't at the time, I broke the tibia and fibula in my lower right leg as well as two bones in my right wrist. And before any of you ask if it hurt, let me tell you it did. It's a funny sensation trying to lift your leg and have it bend in an unusual shape; it's very humbling.

Anyway, my careless act landed me in the hospital, and three days, one metal rod and three screws later I was released. I was not too concerned about returning to school after this ordeal, after all I had numerous friends that I had made over the years to help me. The only thing they could not help me with was myself; this accident spiraled me into a deep pit of depression and an overall I-hate-the-world attitude. Unfortunately this attitude reflected on my grades as well. But as the old saying goes, time heals all wounds, and four months later I was back on my feet.

I learned many lessons during that part of my life, the simplest being don't do something you shouldn't, and if you insist on it, at least wear pads. But the most important thing I learned from my ordeal was patience. Of course there was the patience of waiting for my ride to and from school or waiting on someone to bring me my dinner plate, but I am speaking of a different kind of patience.

I am speaking about patience with other people. Towards the end of my healing process when I was on crutches, I had a temporary handicapped placard for my truck. Some might find this a little extreme, but have you ever tried to cross Dena Drive at 8 in the morning on crutches? Eventually I had to learn to drive my truck, which is a stick-shift with a semi broken leg and a right wrist still ripe with atrophy (a condition in which muscles begin to weaken due to lack of use). On the way home from class one day I got behind a vehicle with a handicapped placard, this vehicle was driving slowly and I began to get frustrated. Just as I was about to honk my horn in anger, I looked up, and what did I see hanging from my rear-view mirror, my handicapped placard. The little piece of blue plastic sat there staring at me as if to say "Would you want someone to honk at you if you were having trouble shifting or using the clutch?" So my hand eased off the horn and I continued on my way.

Eventually, I arrived back to my apartment; after I had made my way inside I sat on my bed thinking about what had just occurred. For all I know that gentlemen in that car might not have even had a foot to drive with or some other physical impairment. It was wrong of me to be so impatient with someone I didn't know anything about. I guess you could say the moral of my little tale of woe is to be patient with people and don't jump to conclusions. Often times we become too entranced in our own little world to remember there are millions of people out there with their own problems and struggles, and most of the time we cannot even see them. So the next time you find yourself frustrated at a slow driver or someone counting up change for a drink at the convenience store, just be patient, it's not the end of the world if you aren't first in line. And one final note, if you are going to try and rollerblade down a hill aim for the grass, its a lot softer and more forgiving than concrete.

Micah Wells Senior Communications Major