In Peril

My English teaching colleague, the fabulous Kelly Dennis, has told me I have to write at least 150 words about the most perilous thing I have ever done. I'm at a loss. My life, thus far, has been lackluster in the peril department --- at least physical peril. 

And isn't that what we think of when we think of peril? Peril: Great physical danger that makes you look like an action movie hero, hanging by your fingernails from the side of a cliff or jumping from one rooftop to another as a pack of rabid bad guys nip at your heals. 

Problem is, I've never done anything that could be a trailer for an action movie. When we chose teams in PE class, I was always picked last. My large motor skills aren't exactly the things other teams covet. 

Of true physical peril, I've had none that I can recall. Peril, for me, has always come from nowhere, utterly unplanned and unwanted. 

Peril comes on a Sunday afternoon, when I'm reading the comics and my mom calls from the hospital and tells me there's a mass on my father's brain and they are using words like "tumor" and "possibly malignant." That can't be. He is the healthiest man in North America. Strong, funny, only 52. 

Peril, for me, comes in the earliest hours of January 1, 2000, when my aunt calls and tells me she thinks my mother is gone, and that the firemen are working on here now. She can't be gone. This was the day she was supposed to come live with me so I could take care of her and nurse her back to health. It was all planned. She is only 55 and her I cannot be an orphan. 

Being orphan, I guess that's the most perilous thing I've ever done. It's the scariest thing if you have had a safety net all your life to have it yanked out from underneath you. If I mess up, there is no one to catch me if I fall. 

I never felt more like a grownup than the day I became an orphan. I was already married, already had three children of my own, I was grown but not up. I had never once lived in peril until the day I became an orphan at age 34.