As we begin 2015, I have been pondering the way things can change so quickly in very little time. As humans, we have a great deal of ability to shape our lives, our own futures, and the lives and futures of those around us. No matter how self-important I may sometimes feel in my own little world, I have to realize too, that I have very little ability to alter the outcome of something that happens to me, against my will. The only thing I can control is how I behave and react as a result of it.
Life itself taught me this lesson quite keenly a few months back. The day began as many summertime days do in the South: hot, muggy, and oppressively sticky. Nonetheless, I decided I would go for an early morning jog. Since we moved, I never run on roads anymore. All of my running consists of the trails through the woods on our own property. The thing that I have to remember about running through the woods is that I am not likely to be the only creature on the trails. My old, faithful Doberman always runs with me, but this morning we had already jumped two deer on the first trail. At just under a mile, I was feeling excellent. I hadn’t quite reached invincible, but I had definitely achieved magnificent. I figured I would push myself to run a 5K distance, just to see how long it would take. (Before you laugh at my sad abilities, please note: I jog for my pleasure, my health, and because it is my time away from mommy-duty. I do not run to kill myself with miles, or to seek out every type of marathon within a 200-mile radius and challenge myself to complete them all. Seriously, hats off to the people who do, but I am not one who is up for all that.)
As I rounded the bend on the second trail, my eyes on the ground ahead of me scoping the lay of the land for foot placement and possible critters, I spotted it. Freezing in my tracks for a beat, I stifled a strangled yelp, threw my stride in reverse and backpedaled about five steps. My Dobie, having no clue as to my odd behavior, shot past me and paused in front of me, stutter-stepping with her two front paws on either side of the biggest Timber Rattler I have ever seen. This sucker was halfway onto the trail in front of me and his back half disappeared into the woods a ways. His middle looked thick enough around to digest truck tires in sequence.
He stared at me, flicking his forked tongue, while the Doberman pranced around his head. The snake quickly tired of her stomping and began to draw into a striking position. I yelled to her to come to me and she obeyed immediately. The snake was still focused on us and beginning to coil, so we stepped back another couple steps as I drew my .22 Ruger LCR, which my firefighter has forced me to jog with ever since moving to the woods. He said I needed to protect myself in case I ran up on a snake. It was his opinion that I should be able to defend myself, our children, and our pets. Even though we had already seen many snakes this summer, I scoffed at his insistence. After all, it is hot and uncomfortable to run with a bra holster and a loaded .22 flat against my torso. At this moment though, being sized up by the biggest snake I’ve ever seen, I could clearly see the wisdom in his insistence and said a quick prayer of gratitude that I have such a wise, caring, and stubborn husband.
Even though I was shaking like mad and had a half-blind Doberman standing on my foot, I aimed and hit the snake. Believe it or not, the Timber Rattler was so big that the .22 just ticked him off. He reared up with his head about a foot and a half off the ground and waved back and forth at me like a cobra, his rattle making a chorus of noise behind him. I fired again and he hit the ground for a retreat. He headed into the woods in the direction of our house and my kids, so I fired again and again. I hit him three times total. His rattle faded, but he kept slithering because snakes have an amazing ability to continue to move even well after death. I holstered my weapon, marked my location with a large stick, ran back home, and woke up my 14-year-old to come help me find the snake. We both changed into jeans and snake boots and she grabbed the "snake tamer," a .410 single-shot shotgun, loaded with bird shot, and we headed back out. We found the snake about six feet into the woods from where I had left my marking stick. Our girls are all crack-shots, so I let my daughter make sure he was dead. She shot to kill, then shot again to blow his head off because neither one of us wanted to cut it off with as big and muscular as he was. After a while, even though we were both still shaking from adrenalin, we dragged him out of the woods and loaded him into the back of a Polaris to bring home and skin.
Where was my firefighter during all of this? On shift, of course! At the point when I woke up my daughter to help me find the snake, I texted my firefighter just to let him know what was going on. Throughout the morning, I sent photos to him and let him know how things were progressing. The interesting part was that there was nothing for him to do other than “ooh” and “ahh” over the size of the snake. I didn’t need him to come home or call anyone else to come take care of anything. I handled it just fine. I never considered pausing to question my ability to take care of things. I just did it. To question would be to doubt. To doubt myself would have caused me to hesitate. To hesitate could have changed the entire outcome of the situation. Rather than acting, aiming and walking away from the situation unharmed, I might have hesitated long enough for the snake to strike either our old dog or myself. What then?
Any slight variance in the situation could have completely altered everything about the outcome. Thankfully, things happened as they did. A threat occurred. I acted. Now, my daughter has an awesome rattlesnake skin hanging on her wall. My faithful old Dobie is still around to run every mile with me. My fireman thanked me for being the kind of wife who can handle anything, whether he is here or not. And I lie down to sleep each night, whether alone or with my fireman by my side, and I thank God that I have the amazing life I have, beginning with my family.
So, even though the obstacles in your fire wife life are most likely not massive rattlesnakes on your running path, how do you handle your personal obstacles and threats? Do you handle them with fierce determination? Do you shy away and hesitate to act, wishing your fireman could do it for you and quickly texting him so he will? Or are you somewhere on the gray area fence in between these two realms, as most fire wives probably are? Wherever you fall of this spectrum, make a decision to improve just a bit on your decisiveness this coming year. Work on being the fire wife that will help your husband relax at work and focus his efforts on work, knowing you are handling everything at home just fine.
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