A number of you requested that I cover my favorite moments in life for the next Top Ten Tuesday series. Today, I'll begin doing just that. But like many of you said, numbering such moments in order is almost impossible. So, I won't even attempt to do so. Instead, I'll just write about ten of my favorite moments in no particular order.
The first one I want to write about occurred in 1997 after I ruptured my Achilles tendon in my right leg while playing softball. I had surgery and was in a cast and was told to try to keep my leg propped up and to keep it as still as possible for several weeks so that the tendon would have a chance to heal. I was glued to my recliner. I ate my meals there. I slept there. I read and watched television there. It was a long, trying time.
If I even put my leg down for a few seconds, the pain was quite intense. My grandmother, who lived in the house above my apartment, came down and helped me often. And my sister often dropped off my niece, who was seven at the time, to visit my grandmother and me. My niece has Cerebral Palsy in her lower extremities, but she didn't let the stop her from slowly making her way down the stairs to hang out with her Uncle Lee.
On this particular day, we'd watched all her favorites television programs on Nickelodeon--Blues Clues, Gulla Gulla Island, and another show that had something to do with Bears. She asked me if I wanted anything from the refrigerator.
"Yeah, I'll take a pop if you don't mind."
She crawled to the refrigerator, made a comment about finding some disgusting leftovers that had apparently been a little too leftover and was starting to change colors, and I couldn't stop laughing. She sighed about my maleness, and as she started to crawl back to me with my pop in hand, something inside me was touched beyond words.
Here was a girl who'd been through more surgeries than I have, who was struggling with more physical problems that I've ever known, bringing me a pop. We'd always been extremely close and I've been there for her after her many surgeries, but seeing her serve me moved me to the brink of tears. She apparently saw that I was moved, so she asked me what was wrong.
"Nothing. Everything is perfect."