Nancy’s Turnaround
Learning to Bounce Back
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Tony nudged his wife, Nancy, as the choir finished its anthem. It was time for Nancy to read, but she didn’t move.
He couldn't understand why she wasn't walking up to the altar. Finally, Nancy stood but then sat back down. Tony saw Helen at the lectern, reading the lesson. He quickly checked the Sunday bulletin: "Nancy Wallace, 10:30 service, lector."
Helen finished reading, and Tony glanced at Nancy’s crestfallen face. Her jaw was clenched, her eyes vacant. She looked ashen in her new chartreuse outfit. Tony reached for her hand, but she pulled away.
During the minister’s sermon, Tony’s mind raced, searching for an explanation. Nancy stared blankly at her feet. They had left home early because Nancy always liked to check the lessons beforehand. In the car, listening to the 8:15 service broadcast, Pastor Higgens announced, "Today's sermon is based on the first lesson in Deuteronomy."
"Deuteronomy?" Nancy exclaimed. "Did I get the wrong lesson?" They must have changed lessons!"
"It's okay," Tony assured her, "just read through it a couple of times. You've got time."
Tony knew this wasn't how she wanted things to go. She felt unprepared. With total hearing loss in her left ear, she habitually read and reread lessons aloud a dozen times during the week, perfecting pronunciation, pace, and emphasis.
They often struggled with words like "thwart" and "Zion." Tony's attempts to pronounce them were warped by his speech impediment, and Nancy would repeat what she heard. After several attempts, they usually reached an "approximation." By Friday, she would declare, "I've got it down."
Just weeks before, Pastor Higgens had praised Nancy's readings, remarking on the feeling she infused into them. Tony was so proud. Reading in front of a group was something he still feared due to his own speech difficulties, yet Nancy excelled at it.
Ten years prior, it would have been impossible for Nancy. She would giggle uncontrollably, an escape from the tension of public speaking. So, they took a Dale Carnegie public speaking course, which broke her giggling habit.
As they entered the sanctuary that Sunday, Nancy retrieved the readings before the service and quickly reviewed them. They weren't difficult.
"How do you pronounce this word?" she whispered.
"A-ra-mean," Tony repeated slowly, unsure, whispering in her "good" ear, "It's either Ar-a-mean or Ara-me-an." He suggested she ask Pastor Higgens, and she did.
"It's Ara-me-an," she confirmed upon returning. Tony felt assured she was prepared.
Yet, during the service, Helen unexpectedly took Nancy’s place.
"I want to go," Nancy urged as soon as the service ended. Tony could see anger and disappointment boiling within her. They reached their car without speaking to anyone.
"What happened?" Tony asked once they were inside their car.
"I know what happened," she replied tartly. "Pastor Higgens asked Helen to read for me because he thought I couldn't do it."
"Why?" Tony asked in disbelief. "Did you ask him to do that?"
"No, I just mentioned the church office switched lessons and I didn't know about it. I just needed to know how to pronounce Aramean. It was an easy read. I could have done it. I should have had the option of reading it, since I knew I could do it. He didn't tell me he was going to ask Helen to read for me."
"You sure you didn't hear him ask you that?"
"Noooo! I just needed help with that one word," Nancy exploded. "I don't feel like reading anymore."
“Setbacks cannot demolish you without your permission.” ― Hiral Nagda
This was something Tony had hoped he'd never hear. She repeated it as she stewed on Monday and Tuesday. Tony resisted the urge to say, "You’re afraid you'll get rejected again." Instead, he let her diffuse her anger.
By Wednesday, her anger was gone. On Thursday, she called the church office to confirm the next weekend's readings. By coincidence, she had signed up two months before to be lector at the next Saturday night service.
On Friday morning, Tony heard her practicing her reading in the kitchen as he came out of the shower. And she did just fine at Saturday night's service. She was learning how to bounce back.
That example of resilience, after the minor crisis of 1987 in the Wallace household, reminds Tony to this day that an individual can grow into a whole person by standing up to (or learning how to work around) a particular vulnerability.
How well it all turns out depends on how well that person has learned to respond to real or perceived threats to their well-being. Tony now realizes setbacks can shape human lives for positive outcomes.
Tony's takeaway tip from Nancy’s resilience: Recognize setbacks as opportunities for personal growth.
Here’s to mature-adult living!
Jim Hasse, ABC, GCDF retired, author of “52 Shades of Graying”
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As a new high school grad in 1961, I had earned a four-year state scholarship from Wisconsin pre-DVR services, and I was excited about getting my degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
I remember going to the Madison registrar office on Bascom Hill ready to apply for school, only to find the admissions people wouldn’t accept my application because they believed I couldn’t climb the hills and steps on campus to make it between classes.
Reluctantly, I agreed to take my first two years of classes at the then Wisconsin State College at Platteville, a smaller, flat campus. I earned straight “A’s” and then was finally accepted in 1963 as a junior at Madison, where I could obtain my journalism degree.
During the summer after my sophomore year, I learned how to use Canadian crutches in the fields of our home farm, timing my pace each day so by that fall I knew I could even climb the Bascom Hill steps to get to class within the 15-minute break between sessions.
Looking back, I could have used today’s virtual options in education as well as the curb cuts and elevators now mandated by the ADA. I could have also used a mobility scooter, like my present-day PRIDE, which, at the time, was not yet on the market.
But attending Platteville for two years gave me a perspective I wouldn’t have had by starting my freshman year on the Madison campus. I learned to work around a pre-ADA obstacle. And I gained a better understanding of the values of small-town, rural Wisconsin, which I needed to eventually develop the corporate communication function for a just-formed dairy cooperative that is now Foremost Farms USA.
* What setback has molded you into the more-effective person you are today?