Being Brave And The Brace Will Make That Happen Elita Sohmer Clayman

The Orthopedic doctor on Thursday which was my birthday, said I needed to get a brace to use temporarily to try to heal my aching right knee. I was fitted with one, but it was too bulky, so my knowledgeable  physician assistant Dennis Myers is calling the ortho doctor on Monday, on where to send me to get a readymade one, but customized to my knees. So hopefully that will get me back to my beloved ballroom dancing sooner. I told Dennis via text that the ortho doctor gave me this and I was wearing it home until it slipped down because it got loose and was really very cumbersome. He texted me back that I wearing the brave was good. I realized he hit the v instead of the next letter on the keyboard of  c. That made it sound like Elita was brave to wear it when he meant wearing the brace.

I felt very good knowing for a few minutes that I was a brave person.Think back in your own life when and how many times, you have been brave and for what?

I know that when I had two children, women are surely brave what with the pain, the bulkiness of getting heavier, of being hungry a lot more, of giving birth etc. I was brave when I had a colonoscopy, I was brave at age seven when my tonsils were taken out, as all children of that era had to have them removed  or else. Else, what was the question, all parents asked the doctor. I remember Mom and me going to the hospital called than Baltimore Ear, Eye, Nose and Throat Hospital. A weird name of a building rather old, but everyone went there to get their tonsils out in 1941. I was the age then of my number three grandson now. We had no car and so Mom and I went on the streetcar. I was scared and Mom said she would be there the whole time for me and we had to stay the night and she stayed with me and my reward for being good was that the hospital served you as much ice cream as you wanted the rest of the day. It was supposed to be good for the tonsil taking out procedure afterwards happening. I was brave when I flew for the first time at age thirty-eight and we went to London. I was brave when Dad passed on and I was pregnant with my son. I was brave getting a few root canals done. I was brave learning to ballroom dance and to compete in competitions. I was brave going to Weight Watchers the first time and being overweight and walking in the door to start a diet program. The leaders all said that was the bravest thing you did that week, having the nerve and guts to start a program to better your health.

So there are many brave moments in our lives and when we look back, we are proud of our self for handling it so well. I heard this on a television show. The lady said to the man she was talking to that the thing that just had happened was “an emotional whiplash.” That is a good expression and anyone who has had the actual whiplash from an automobile accident can relate to its feeling and the emotional form of it has to be almost as bad mentally.

 There is a suggestion that wishful thinking is something we can make real. They say that we should take our wishful thinking and make it real thinking and that is the way life should be everywhere. I have a friend who when you talk to her and tell her something, she says “this is a true story.”

When I was a kid, there were lots of magazines and one of them was called True Story. We would buy it when we had a spare quarter to read the true stories of bad things that happened to women and how they made it turn out in the end alright. Some were about a young woman and she was lonely and one day, somewhere she met a young man and they got together and fell in love and that was their true story. One I remember had the country girl leave home and go to live and work in a big city and there she met her true love, but did not know he was married and how sad she was to find that out and then she went back home to the country and hooked up with her old boyfriend from years ago and they got married and everything was fine. That was her true story.

I was brave when Dad died and I helped Mom to keep herself going and surviving. She moved into a new apartment from where she and Dad lived for about sixteen years and she got herself a job and it was in the evening hours from five to ten and it kept her evenings from being so lonely. The new home kept her busy with buying additional furniture and furnishings. I taught her how to do the checkbook because Dad had always done those bookkeeping chores. She got along fine and then she got a fulltime job with the State Of Maryland and that really changed her life for the better. She met a friend there and they became like older (Mom) and younger (Sylvia) sisters and went on a few trips together So Mom began to travel and work and a new apartment and she had a nice life. She went to the beauty parlor every Saturday and had her hair done and went out on Sundays with neighbors to dinner. Saturdays she spent with me after I took her to the hair salon, picked her up there and brought her to my house to visit with her grandchildren and to have dinner with us. Then I took her home or some nights she babysat them when they were young.

She was brave too, continuing on after his death and having a nice life.

I bet that any of you reading this can look back and marvel at the many events you were brave about and when they happened, you did not think it was a phenomenon. You knew you had to continue on and do what was necessary to survive.

My friend has MS and she works and takes care of her daughters and her home and has a marvelous laugh and hopes for the best in her future. She hopes they find some medicines to cure it and that she will be one of the lucky ones who are not too sick from it.

When I wear my new brace, I will be brave, because I will hope it heals my knee and lets me walk better and maybe even get back to my beloved ballroom dancing. My dance coach John Dawson here in Pikesville, says:

“ Happy Birthday Elita

I hope this year make for a best year yet.  Mazel Tov!!!

Much LOVE, JOY, and DANCING are ahead for you!

XO John “

I have to be brave and hope that the new brace makes that happen. Yes, John, I will dance with you next June at the Atlantic Ballroom dance competition and I will win awards and you will be proud of me, that at age seventy-eight, I will accomplish this feat with my feet and it will be because of your excellent teaching methods and me not wearing the brace. I will be wearing my BRAVE attitude and know that I can and will do it and do it well. The brace made me brave. Take the b off of brave and it becomes rave and the b off of the brace and it becomes race.

Then I will race to the dance floor and everyone will rave.This is a nice dream that I will realize into reality.