Skip to main content

What I Cannot Ignore

 


After waking up the kids for school, I gave attention to our two bunnies who wanted me to pet them.  Then I went back upstairs to listen and pray before stretching and completely rising for the day.

As I lay there in bed, praying, then listening... hearing a trumpet in the background... voices of a teacher... I glanced for a near moment to the empty space beside me. I ask myself internally if I currently feel a suffering of any kind.  The answer is, 'No. I don't'. Some people may think I do. Yet, the clear, honest answer is emphatically, 'No'. 

I began to realize this morning when I suffered last. It seemed last night. It was a spiritual yearning to be back in the ring or the cage,  fighting. I thought internally then, 'I'm just so pained in not being in the Grind.'

However, this morning I had a different view, unlike fighting and being in the Grind of it. I reckoned with the suffering I'd watched of what appeared other's suffering. As that has been since about my age five.  That suffering has effected me greatly.  Whether it was watching it Live or via a Screen or over the Air waves via Radio... or over a plectron as a child.  Hearing a crying police officer over the air. Then, hearing a truck pull out of my driveway.
And, all I could do was pray. I'd lay there and pray till the sun rose or I fell back to sleep, praying.

Again, this morning... my thoughts ebbed to the Grind I miss so much. As I watched Rocky for near the over hundredth time last night. Trying to comprehend how I feel no pain practically,  even when physically pained. I have so not felt it. To the point in a sparring session, my coach looking on. He stops us for a few seconds and motions for me to wipe blood off my face.  Evidently my face is covered in blood and I'm thinking its sweat. I finally acquiesce and wipe with my short shirt  sleeve the blood off my face and shrug. He waves me over.

I walk over to him. "Your nose okay?"
I think it's a weird question,  "Huh?"
He puts his hand on my nose, apparently resetting it.  Then I feel fresh air rushing through my nose.  But I don't feel the pain.  He looks at me. I shrug, "I'm good." I go back to sparring.

I've had knuckles broken for six months... we just padded my left hand. My ribs dislocated and broken... after a while it'd come to the point, though breaks of ribs hurt... I got so used to dislocations of the ribs...to the point I'd feel fine, drive home. Say 'Hi' to my family, dinner, maybe do a chore. Go to take a shower.  Glance in the mirror and see my left ribs heading east as my body was heading west towards our shower stall.  After the third dislocation second break, coach wrapped my ribs for three years nearly every time I entered the fight gym. It had gotten to the point after the third dislocation, that I'd go to sleep, perhaps being on vacation with the family... I'd wake up with my left side heading in an opposite direction of where those ribs should sit. I got used to not worrying about it.

If I were within 48 hours of seeing my coach the call went like this, "So, Phil. Um. When I come in on Wednesday, you'll need to put my ribs back in. I didn't feel anything rolling with Derek tonight." Phil would reply, "That's gon'na hurt." I'd respond, "Yeah. Just warn your wife. I always have my mouthpiece in. I might curse. It'll be fine."

Near 48 hours later... after a training session with Phil. He went upstairs and gave his wife the heads up.  Then, I'd hear, "Jody ready? Breathe. Oh, this..." He'd sigh, you could nearly hear his head rattle as he apparently was shaking it. And yes, it was the loudest curse word you heard next. But the ribs were back in.

The only time in the essence of fighting my ribs weren't wrapped/taped was during competitions. And I never had a problem with my ribs during or right after the fight, even if they had been dislocated from a night's sleep the week before. I believe it was because I fought women mostly in competition and men on a regular basis in training. Size among the men varied as much as over 100 pounds more than I, while I boxed, rolled and such.

So, as I reflect back on what truly has pained me in life... it is not my living... It is seemingly witnessing the suffering of others, that is the most painful. Witnessing the misery of jealousy... as those that are jealous and have misguided love, hate. That causes me deep suffering that I cannot ignore.---Jody-Lynn Reicher

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Completion of Humanness

Completion of Humanness As we arrive to the completion of the first year without Norman, I had decided long before he'd passed that I would continue to do things certain things he liked yet could no longer do. I decided I would not take a day off of fitness.  I would run at least for 500 days in a row. I began that in early 2020.  I'd not be concerned with the distance I'd run. It was the very thing I convinced Norman and the thing that mattered to him, from the very first discussion we had August 11th, 1981, was fitness. I loved that he was a College Boy. He loved that I was a Marine. We tickled each other's soul with such admirations. Later fitness continued as an old discussion from 1994 ...getting outside and to run no matter what. I would say to him, "Run 200 meters, then 400 meters. If it doesn't feel good, stop. Turn around and walk back home and know you did your best. That is all you can ask of yourself." I said this,  knowing he would get dow

In My World

As I finish putting away the week's groceries, I contemplate other's lives. Aside from my two daughters,  I consider what may be other's lives.  How they have conducted their lives over the past two years.  This is a thought not unusual for me to have. Yet, it occurs more often than not. Especially  now, as the population is probably feeling ever more irked. Regarding perhaps. their illusion of any lack of their freedom. But isn't that what life is about? The illusion of who we are. What we are about. Where we stand on the planet. Who we love. And who loves us. Our significance. Couldn't we imagine if this were all just an illusion? Sounds like a "Twighlight Zone" episode, perhaps. My aim here, are the thoughts of reckoning. I'll explain why I'm claiming such a thing. For about twenty-eight years of a career in dealing with injured athletes,  pain patients, chronically ill and the terminally ill. I found that there were many people who lied to

It Follows Me...

One may wonder what would inspire someone to work hard labor voluntarily. For me it’s the love of many things. It’s the passion that won’t be broken. Because there are so many aspects to such service for me, that it may seem beyond comprehension. I’d compare it to my youthful desire to enter the military as a young child. Then for a multitude of reasons only to follow through thirteen years later at age eighteen entering the Marines. There were things that followed me throughout my life. Sometimes they were questions of how I ever gave up my over decade’s life dream to become a New Jersey State Trooper. My childhood desire to never wed—to never have any serious relationships with another human being. I desired only service in military and law enforcement nearly my whole childhood. Too the extent that even one of my Marine Corps superiors expressed to me last July, “I never thought you’d ever get married. It just wasn’t who you were. You were always a loner.” I replied, “Yeah. I know.