For those of you out there who typically click through to read the comments that other people have left on my posts, you will have noticed that yesterday, my mom left a comment. She did so in order to ask me to please stay in one more day and to take care of myself.

My mom reads my blog every day, but she rarely leaves comments. On the infrequent occasion when she does leave a comment, she often uses a pseudonym because she doesn’t want to appear pushy or overly mom-like. So for her to comment and just call herself “Mom” indictated the level of her concern.

She shouldn’t have worried though, because when it comes to subjects such as health and bodily well-being, I have firm policy of always listening to her. This policy didn’t always exist. When I was a teenager, I liked to think, like all teenagers do, that nothing could possibly happen to me. So when I was 16 and she told me not go horseback riding, because I was leaving for Poland* three days later and she didn’t want me to be achy on the plane ride, I ignored her warning and got on the horse. I was at the Oregon coast with my dad, my sister and several cousins and it was a beautiful day. Why wouldn’t I go horseback riding?

Well, that day I got a particularly high-spirited horse. I was not very experienced on horseback and while galloping down the beach, my feet slipped out of my stirrups, I lost control and fell off. I was okay, but the wranglers made me try to get back on the horse. During that attempt, the horse reared, I got thrown and broke my ankle badly. It took two operations and three years before my ankle worked normally again.

I believe that my mom had some intuitive sense of the risk I was taking in getting on that horse. I could have saved myself a lot of hurt and anguish had I listened to her that day. So these days, I always listen to my mother when it comes to keeping myself in one piece. Case in point is the fact that I strayed no further from my apartment today than the trash room down the hall.

*I still went to Poland, but I went on crutches, which prevented me from exploring some of the museums and castles the way I would have liked. One memorable moment from that trip was when a beggar, also dependent on crutches, hobbled up to me and started talking and gesturing to my crutches. Since I didn’t speak Polish, I had no idea what he was saying. One of the translators spotted the situation and came over to save me. It turned out that he was simply admiring my crutches and wanted to know where he could get a pair like them.