Yesterday afternoon I fell down a flight of stairs.

My big toe kinda, sorta, hurt alot.

Last night the girls were with their Dad so I could not pass up the chance to run in 80 degree weather.

I came back to my office after three miles to find my big toe was now really, really big and really black and blue.

The rest of the night was spent at urgent care where they x-rayed and gave the verdict of a torn ligament.

I came home to the girls full of oohs and aahs over the ugliness of my toe.

They couldn’t believe I ran on it. They wondered why I was so stubborn to keep running when it hurt.

It was in that moment that I thought of my mom. Truly, honestly, one of the most stubborn, bull-headed women you will ever meet.

She lives her life determined.

Life gets rough. Life gets hard. You have choices to make. Do you sit in the pain or do you move through it?

It’s hard to teach that lesson. Your kids have to watch it, see it lived to absorb the example.

Her lifetime of never giving up- on me, my brothers, my Dad and even herself.

One of my most vivid memories from childhood is my mom sitting at the dining room table.

Papers sprawled all around her, typewriter at her fingertips.

I was maybe 8 or 9, my brothers 5 and 11. My dad a full-time job at the hospital and his military life on the side.

There she sat amid the chaos of raising a family and supporting a husband, writing her masters thesis on the AIDS epidemic in Africa.

Hundreds of pages of notes. Hours and hours of research all done while kids in school or husband at the office.

Her masters born out of sheer determination because she wanted it. She needed it for herself.

She would hate me writing this post.

I may never share it with her because the “mushy stuff” does not come as easily to her.

I will tell her tonight though that watching her live her life has been the most amazing example.

And that loving her has taught me how to  push on and to love myself…..