The morning of Monday, March 18, 2024, my eight-year-old son, Drew, missed the bus. Per our typical tradition on such mornings, he asked, “Can we go to Tim Horton’s?” Trying to deter him from more sugar in a single donut, I offered a different suggestion: “Let’s take out the garbage.”
Drew and I began the journey down our very long driveway, each of us rolling a large trashcan. As we began our ascent on the first hill, Drew said, “It’s too heavy, Mom.” With a trashcan rolling behind me on each side, my arms outstretched, I trekked toward the end of the driveway.
At the end of the driveway, a patch of Michigan-morning black ice spilled me to the ground…HARD. I knew instantly my right ankle suffered an injury. As I sat in the cold, shocked, Drew walked the trashcans about a dozen steps or so to the end of the driveway. With the trashcans in place, Drew tried to help me stand, but I knew crawling would be my only option without significant help.
I knew my phone was placed somewhere in our house. I knew I sat just far enough into our driveway that motorists zipping by at 55 mph – 65 mph would not see me unless they happened to be looking. I knew I might have to crawl to the end of the driveway to wave a motorist down or have Drew do so, but the highway felt unsafe. I knew I could not crawl all the way back to the house.
Drew, staying SO calm, cool, and collected, helped me brainstorm some options. We live on ten acres and neighbors are not close by. We live on a very busy road, so walking down the side of the road is not an option for any of my kids, especially not my youngest. Drew decided the best bet would be to walk across our yard to the edge of the property, hoping to climb over a fence to get to our neighbors’ house.
I waited and shivered in the 35 degree wind whipping around me.
Drew returned. “I don’t think I can climb that rusty fence because it’s too tall. There are thorns everywhere,” Drew said, pulling a series of thorns from his jacket. “And there’s no opening anywhere.” He suggested he would walk back to the house to find my phone, so he wouldn’t slip, and be back as fast as possible. I reminded him to check my car also for my phone.
About thirty minutes into this newfound reality of immobility, Drew returned. “Mom, I can’t find your phone anywhere. But I’ll push you to the house very carefully.”
And although I didn’t jump at his idea, literally or metaphorically, he convinced me it was our only option unless I let him wave down a motorist. This moment with my son inspired my #50PRECIOUSWORDS 2025 ENTRY:
I enjoyed crafting these 50 words. Of course, there’s more to the story.
Once I crawled through the garage and into our foyer, I lay on the hardwood floor, exhausted and scared. Drew looked in every place we could imagine upstairs, downstairs, and on the main floor. Finally, Drew asked, “Where’s your watch?” Even more humbled, I removed my Apple watch from my wrist, which he used the search and find feature to discover my phone. (If only we had thought to use it earlier, but I’m certain shocked stopped by my brain from thinking straight.) When the sound led him to the phone, he brought it to me. I called my father-in-law, instantly alarmed and worried, who rushed to the house to get me.
While we waited, I told Drew, “I’m so worried Buppa’s going to swing that door open and hit my ankle. Will you stand by the door, please?” Smarter than his mother’s shocked fog, Drew said, “I’ll lock the door and make Buppa knock.”
Then Drew, completely on his own, brought me a bowl of 1/3 cereal and 2/3 milk. “You need to eat something.” I tried, and when he realized lying on the floor and using a spoon with my left hand wasn’t easy for me, he brought me a straw. I drank all of the milk and ate all of the cereal lying on my right side, the only meal I had that day until returning home from the emergency room in crutches and a brace on my sprained ankle.
That Friday, the doctor put me in a cast and told me I would eventually wish I had broken my ankle because of how long the recovery would be with an almost Grade 3 injury (the ligaments almost torn). That same day, we traveled from Michigan to South Carolina to stay at a B & B on the ocean. Luckily, we had already planned to drive. Needless to say, that March did not go as I had planned, but my husband, kids, and I made the best of it.
When we returned from Spring Break, Drew remained my constant helper. (And of course, his two older sisters helped as well.) Drew rarely left my side. One night, alligator tears filled his eyes, and I asked him, “Why are you crying?”
He wiped his nose, his big blue eyes glassy. “I know this is my fault, Mom. You wouldn’t have gotten hurt if I had carried my trashcan.”
I wrapped him in a hug and whispered, “Drew, I think I would’ve been hurt even worst, maybe even hit my head, had I not ping ponged between the two trashcans before falling.” I don’t know if he felt guilt as soon as I was hurt and that’s why he helped me face the morning mishap. I honestly believe Drew, a second grader at the time, has a natural ability to handle emergency situations that we had never seen until that moment.
Life has a way of surprising us at times, some ways we welcome and others we feel we could do without. However, even though I still feel pain in my ankle in ways that surprise me (and I wish I would’ve bought Drew a dozen donuts that morning), I am grateful for the memory of my son truly demonstrating such a heroic moment.
I believe Drew will have many more heroic moments in his life, but forever, I will be the first who called him, “My hero.”