I recently spent an afternoon speaking at an assembly at the Provo Canyon School for girls. I shared a story about my daughter Meggan that connected with them in a much more profound way than I anticipated. It got me thinking about the need we all have to believe in ourselves and overcome our fears. If you know someone in your life that might relate, I hope you’ll pass this on, along with the song that accompanies it. Here’s the story:
I figured she was either an airhead or just disinterested in things academic. It didn’t occur to me that my six year old daughter might be having petit mal seizures…as many as forty or fifty a day. When the doctor showed us the chart of my girl’s abnormal brain waves he gave us the good news along with the bad.
“The good news is that there ARE medications that can help your daughter avoid the spacing out episodes known as petit mal seizures. The bad news is that we won’t know which drug will have the least objectionable side effects until after we’ve tried it for a while. We’ll do our best and hope we get lucky.”
We weren’t lucky. The side effect of the first medicine was terrible nightmares. As a result, Meggan tried to avoid the bad dreams by not going to sleep at night, which in turn caused her to fall asleep in class. The boys in her class teased her mercilessly.
The next medication created an incredible hulk girl with such aggressive behavior the guys picked her first for their side football….The girls teased her mercilessly.
Other medications, other side effects…same results: less seizures, more ridicule. It was painful for the parents…I can only imagine how hard it was for a little girl.
As it turned out, we left the big city and moved to the country about the time our daughter caught the right wave of medication. She approached the move to a new place with apprehension.
“Daddy…I think moving is like repentance.”
“How so, Meggan?”
“Nobody knows anything bad about me. It’s like I get a clean slate. I just hope I don’t mess up this time, because if you make a mistake they don’t ever let you forget.”
She said it earnestly and with a melancholy a nearly nine year old shouldn’t have had to experience.
We were living in a little rental behind the bowling alley, waiting for the permits to build our own home on an alfalfa patch on the outskirts of town. Our daughter played tentatively in the neighborhood and I suspect looked a bit like a frightened refugee from another country. Three days after we’d moved in, a man and a woman knocked on our door. The woman spoke first.
“We’d like to welcome you to the neighborhood. We don’t do cookies, we do cattle….here’s a roast.”
The woman handed me a lump of meat wrapped in white butcher paper. I was speechless. My mother never trained me in “roast reception”. What was I supposed to say? Nice rump?
“Thanks…this is really_____” I could have filled in the blank with any number of words: thoughtful, considerate, neighborly, nice…but I went another way.
“This is really….heavy” I meant it like it was a good thing, and bless their hearts, they took it as a compliment.
“Mr. McLean?” There was a long pause. I didn’t know if he was trying to remember something he’d practiced before he came, or if I had just not yet adjusted to the pace of a small rural town. “My name’s Ollie, and this here’s Susan, and besides bringin’ the beef we was hopin’ you could do us a big favor.”
“What would that be, Ollie?” I braced myself for the request…had images of muleteams and barnraisings for some reason, but it wasn’t that.
“Well, my horse Poco ain’t missed ridin’ in the kids rodeo in twenty three years. But this year our daughter Brooke busted up her leg and won’t be able to ride him…”
Ollie took a moment to pause. It seemed to me like it was a brief mourning I didn’t understand. Then he took a breath and carried on.
“And it would be a shame for Poco to not be in the fair this year, so I was wondering…..I know this is a lot to ask of someone who just moved in….but I was wondering if you could do me a big favor and let me give your daughter my horse for the summer.”
If I was inexperienced in roast reception it was nothing compared to this.
“Ollie…I’d….be….and …I’m sure… my girl …..would be….more…than…happy to….a….well….help…you out…..but we…..I mean….I don’t….really know….much about….horses. I’m from New Jersey.”
Ollie nodded. “That’s pretty obvious sir, if you don’t mind my sayin’ so. But you don’t have to worry about a thing. I’ve got saddle and tack that’ll fit your girl just perfect. I’ll get her to Red Ribbon Riders every Wednesday and she’ll be just fine. Poco’s a good ol’ boy and he runs them barrels good. Thanks for helpin’ me out.”
Helping HIM out? Right. I’m doing Ollie a big favor by letting him give my nine year old daughter his horse for the summer…and training her how to ride him. Well God bless the Ollie Clyde’s of this world who don’t show up and give us cookies and tell us if we need anything we should feel free to call because WE NEVER call. I mean honestly…what was I gonna do. Pick up the phone and say, “Hey, just moved in. We’ve got a kid with no self esteem….Got a Horse?” Of course not. We. don’t ask because we don’t want to owe anybody…we don’t want to be beholden to anyone…we want to carry our own weight and take care of ourselves…it’s the way we were raised….But ya’ gotta love the guy who sees a scared kid mopin’ around the neighborhood and just KNOWS what she needs and finds a way to give it to her. It’s been nearly twenty years since this happened and still get emotional thinkin’ about it.
What chokes me up is remembering how learning to ride that horse made my daughter a new person. There’s something about a nine year old and horse that’s …well, it’s almost spiritual
When Meggan rode down Main Street in the parade and gave the cowgirl wave, it was a magic moment. I think I know how Steve Young’s parents must have felt the first time they saw their boy walk on a football field. Only this was WAY cooler.
The confidence she showed on that horse started to spill over into the rest of her life. She didn’t seem as afraid of everything as she had been before. She seemed to know how to reign in and direct the emerging young woman within the way she guided Poco down main street. I thought she’d mastered her fears until the night before the kids rodeo. She opened up to her city slicker dad.
“I’m scared, Daddy. What if I fall?”
I was so naiive about rodeos I offered this helpful thought. “You know, Meggan, I think for the kids rodeo they fluff up the dirt somehow.”
She was not reassured.
You know, when Jesus taught us to be like little children he didn’t mean second and third graders.
I wanted to go strangle every kid who’d ever teased or hurt or ridiculed my daughter and make them apologize for what they’d done.
..and after that passed I wanted to apologize myself to every person I’d ever teased or hurt or ridiculed. And then, after THAT I wanted to give my girl something that would help her get through this thing. I wanted to say:
“Meggan…LIFE is a PLOT to rob us of our self esteem. Just when you start thinkin’ you’re somebody and can do things in this old world, something comes along to tell you that you can’t. I don’t care whether you’re a nine year old girl waiting to ride the barrels in the kids rodeo, or a 17 year old who doesn’t get a part in the play, or a 37 year old who’s husband leaves her with three kids and she has to figure out how to support them. It’s all a plot to convince us that we’re no good, and we we’re only kidding ourselves to think that we could be something and make a difference with our lives….”
But it’s easier to write it down and make it sound good (and rhyme) sometimes than it is to say looking back on it, than it was to get it all out at the time. I’ve taken a certain amount of comfort in the fact that songs and words and speeches are not what bring on self worth. It pleases me that my daughter liked her song. But she seemed to understand…and she liked the song I wrote for her, but the song didn’t have ANYTHING to do with her increased self esteem. That came from the Red Ribbon she won that afternoon, and the way she felt everytime she guided Ollie’s horse where she wanted it to go.
What I learned watching her is that nobody can give you a feeling of self worth. Nobody can preach it to you or teach it to you or sing it to you. . It’s a victory and a gift you give yourself. And it happens when you judge yourself based on the evidence of your own accomplishment. It’s that moment when you realize you can do something, overcome something, be something
I think of this song not as one that inspires self esteem, but as a reminder of the risks we all must be willing to take to achieve it.
—
Anxiously a cowgirl sits, waiting for her number to be called
Clinging to the horn of her worn saddle
Saying prayers that she won’t fall
Staring at the barrels in the small town rodeo
She’s awfully scared but hopes it doesn’t show
In the stand she sees the fans who came to see
Her face in record time
It’s tough to keep your cool with all this pressure
Especially when you’re nine.
Then someone calls her number and it’s time for her to ride
She strains to hear the words again her father said last night.
“If only you believe in yourself
I know you can achieve
If only you believe in yourself
You won’t be scared”
Anxiously a singer sits waiting for a chance to sing her song
Hoping if she hears them say, “You’re not that good”
She’ll know deep down they’re wrong
One more bad audition and she vows she’ll pack it in
But just before she sings she tries to hear those words again
“If only you believe in yourself I know you can achive
If only you believe in yourself, you won’t be scared.”
Anxiously a woman sits waiting for her number to be called
Clinging to the telephone receiver on a table in the hall
Staring at the mirror above her radio
She’s awful scared and fears that it may show
Losing all your confidence is what comes after losing all your pride
And losing what you thought was love makes loving once again so hard to try
Then someone calls her number and she fears she’ll fail again
Until she hears the words she’s known
Since she was nine or ten…
“If only you believe in yourself, I know you can achieve
If only you believe in yourself
You won’t be scared”
Listen to “If Only You Believe in Yourself” here.
GuillermoJuly 23, 2017
This song is a heavenly work of art. Thank you