Pull Together

“Competition is a sin.” ~John D. Rockefeller, American industrialist and philanthropist (1839-1937)

Ten year old Megan was born with one leg shorter than the other. Damage to her peroneal nerve had resulted in a condition commonly referred to as “drop foot” which further exacerbated her already awkward gate. None of it mattered when she was in the water, however. Monday through Friday her Mom brought her to the YMCA for swim team practice.

Megan loved to swim. In the water, she was just like everyone else and, often, she was even better. Competitive swimming was her favorite thing to do. People didn’t stare at her like they stared at her on land.

Megan’s condition was not without remedy, but the surgery to restore her leg was extreme. A section of her leg would need to be amputated, as well as cutting and reconnecting her Achilles tendon. There were two specialists capable of performing the surgery; one in Minnesota and one in Germany.

Tests were run, the arrangements were made and finally the family drove from Southern California to Minnesota for Megan’s surgery. It was the beginning of summer and the beginning of the summer swim season. For Megan, it would be a summer spent in a hospital bed not in the pool.

Leaving her swim team friends and the pool behind was hard. Being in the hospital so far away was even harder. It would have been difficult enough if the surgery had gone well, but there were complications requiring additional surgeries. In the end, Megan underwent five separate procedures, further extending her recovery and her time away from her friends at the Y.

With remarkable intuition and sensitivity her swim team friends quickly grasped the emotional toll this must have been taking on their friend. In addition to a plethora of cards and pictures, twenty of Megan’s teammates came together to create a phone tree.

Daily, a team member would call or text Megan. Even more remarkable, the teammates held each other accountable by following up with the designated callers, making sure Megan was contacted daily.

Finally, her ordeal over, Megan returned home. She still required therapy and strength training to rehabilitate her leg.

She greeted her first day of swim practice with trepidation. The water had always been her sanctuary. Now, she wasn’t so sure and the new leg was still giving her trouble. The team had already celebrated Megan’s return with a welcome home party so this was going to be a “business as usual” practice.

Megan pulled on her cap, slid into the water and promptly froze. Fear gripped her, her leg throbbed; the pain seemed worst than she remembered. She hesitated, wondering whether she would ever be able to swim again.

Quickly, instinctually, her teammates sensed her panic. Several of them grabbed pull buoys from the rack. “Hey Coach!” someone yelled. “Can we do a “PULL” workout today?” A pull workout required no kicking as the swimmers “pull” themselves through the water using only their arms.

Two of Megan’s teammates floated up next to her. “C’mon Megan,” one of them whispered. “We’ll pull with you.” Megan, nodded, took a deep breath, dipped her head and pushed off the wall, heading down the lane with her friends.

First and foremost, we are stewards of one another. It is a concept with which many of us struggle and yet a group of 10 year olds not only grasped it, but embraced it. In our competitive world we often hold a “survival of the fittest” point of view. Television sportscasters recite injury lists indicating who might have the advantage in “today’s game.”

The fall of a competitor at work is viewed as a chance to move ahead, rather than an opportunity to be of service to another. Weakness is not tolerated. Many of our business planning models call for us to identify weaknesses and mitigate or eliminate them.

Stewardship calls us to hold a different view and to take a different approach. We are called to stand with the weak, the injured, and the hesitant, rather than exploit them or celebrate their misfortune.

Megan’s teammates (a group of 10- and 11-year-old girls from a local YMCA) understood that it was more important to help another be better than it was to be the best. After all, if the world is to be a better place, we all must pull together.

Dear God, remind me constantly that others heal better with me than without me.

“Competition is such a virtue, and everybody's so busy competing, they have no time for compassion.” ~Major Robert Odell Owens, New York Politician (b 1936)


© 2011 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.
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