Sometimes, when I feel the heaviness of work and life, I think about my grandmother and this little story. It always makes me smile and brings a little perspective. I hope you enjoy it.

When I was a boy, my family didn’t have much money, so vacations were usually just a few miles from home. Today, they’d probably be considered “staycations.” Often, my dad would rent a friend’s cottage on a lake near Fremont, less than thirty miles from our home in Muskegon. My dad and older brother were more into fishing than I was, but I still wanted to go out on the water with them. They thought I was too much of a pain because I couldn’t swim and was terrified of falling into the lake and drowning. “You talk too much, and it scares the fish,” my father often said. “You can fish off the dock while we go out. It’s safer there, anyway.”

One morning when I was seven, after my dad and brother had rowed out onto the lake, I went out to the dock by myself. I had a junior-size rod and reel, a tiny tackle box, and a Styrofoam cup full of slimy, smelly worms. I wore a bucket hat and, being Mr. Safety First, an orange life vest. I pretended to be a serious fisherman, casting and reeling like I was using a lure, though my poor worm just sank to the bottom.

I liked casting. It made me feel like a pro. I thought maybe one day, my dad and brother would be impressed enough to let me in the boat with them. After a few warmups, I decided to see how far I could cast. I raised the pole over my head, pulled it way back, and whipped that worm as far as I could into the lake.

To my shock, I hooked something. At first, it felt like I’d snagged a major lunker, the kind of fish that would feed my family for a week or take up a spot over the fireplace—if we had a fireplace. But then, as I yanked the line and suddenly found myself going headfirst off the dock, I realized I had taken my pole so far back that I’d hooked the back of my own life vest and flung myself into the lake.

My dad and brother heard the splash and started rowing back to the dock, but they were a long way out.



“Hang on, Kevin, we’re coming!” Dad yelled. I was flailing and screaming, terrified I was going to drown.

My grandma and grandpa were with us that year, and Grandma came running out of the cabin as fast as her legs could go. When she got to the dock, she sprawled on her belly trying to grab me, but I was just out of reach. Then suddenly, she sprang to her feet, cupped her hands around her mouth, and said, “Kevin, listen to me. Just stand up. It’s not that deep, honey. Get your feet under you and just stand up.”

Turns out, she was right. I squirmed in the water, got my legs down, and my feet hit the bottom. I stood up, and the water was barely above my waist.

If my grandma hadn’t come running, I might still be out there, terrified and treading water, totally unaware that my fear was far greater than the depth of my problem. Sometimes, we just need to take a stand and rise above our fears. My grandma’s words remind me that when we dare to stand tall, we often discover our challenges are not as great as the fear surrounding them.