On Courage

The balcony where we stand juts out twelve feet above the glassy surface of the deep lake. We look over the edge, her and I. For her, it might as well be a mile down to the water. The gate is open. Her little hand is clasping mine with all its tender might. I kneel down to my daughter’s eye level. She’s tall for seven years old, a dusting of light brown freckles. I see a shimmer glide across her hazel eyes, a dragon with golden scales, searing all it encounters. I see the flames spreading. Her eyes shift back and forth. Her goal for the summer is to make the jump, to leap from the spongy wooden planks and soar. Yesterday, on her first attempt, the dragon got the better of her. Her knees quivered and she cried, “No. I am afraid.” She descended the long steps in defeat. I was not there to hold her hand. 

Nearly twenty years earlier I sat in a locker room of a small sports arena getting my hands wrapped for a fight. The fight was to be three five-minute-rounds, no holds barred. Though I may resemble one, being heavily tattooed and hosting a moderate amount of cauliflower ear, I am not a fighter. Not at heart anyway. I don’t mind getting hit and I know enough to keep from getting killed, but I lack the particular variety of ambition necessary to hurt other people. Why was I about to fight another man in a cage then? Probably for a similar reason why my daughter stands on quivering knees twelve feet above Otter Lake. Or why people still watch the news: Fear is seductive. 

As I walked out to the cage the audience screamed, drunk on violence and overpriced canned beer. One might think such a ruckus would elicit bravery in a fighter. It did not have that impact on me. I couldn’t believe where my legs were taking me. My limbs felt simultaneously hollow and laden with concrete. My heart felt like the only guest who showed up at its own party, standing awkwardly alone in the cavern of my chest, screaming at itself to pass the dip. My brain looked down and laughed at what a loser my heart was until he realized that it was, in fact, he who was about to receive the damage of this little soiree. I entered the cage where my opponent was already waiting. They locked the gate behind me. 

I knew I messed up. But there was no turning back now. It was I who encouraged my seven year old daughter to give the jump another try. When I found out that fear had kept her from realizing her year long goal, I was overcome by a sensation of great responsibility. For the most part, I don’t know if what I am doing as a parent is correct. I try. I read to my daughter as much as possible because I’ve never once heard of a person messing up their kid by reading to them. I like to think that I set reasonable boundaries then provide my daughter with the freedom to roam at her leisure within them without interference. When I heard that fear had bested her on the balcony deck over the dock, something in the core of my fatherly being knew that I had to intervene. I asked her what she thought about taking another shot at it before we left the lake. She agreed and we walked back out to the plank. 

Prior to that cage fight, I had been in a few fist fights. I had also been in a few small gun fights, having been, at the time, previously deployed twice to Afghanistan. One might think that a firefight in Afghanistan is a significantly more trying experience than a one on one hand to hand bout with a referee present to stop things if they get too bloody. Yes and no. The difference is how much time there is to think about the situation. Time is to fear what oxygen is to fire. And all that time driving to the arena, weighing in, wrapping my hands, warming up, walking out, standing, waiting for the violence. Only a single spark of fear was necessary to destroy me. 

We’ve been standing up here too long. I’ve been trying to talk her up. The more I do, the more she thinks about it. I tell my daughter that I too experience fear each time I make the twelve foot jump. That seems to reduce the flame just slightly in her watering eyes. Then I ask her if she remembers how she felt in the moments before her first ballet performance. She says that she felt so nervous but she knew she could do it because she had practiced so much. She goes on to say that she knew that since she was center stage that the other dancers would be depending on her so she had no choice, she had to do her very best. Now my eyes are watering. 

I ask her, “Do you have fear?”

“Yes,” she says.

“Is it a big fear?”

“Yes,” she says. 

“I bet it is,” I say. I smile. “You know what is bigger?” I say.

She looks at me. There is a trust in her eyes. Her little eyes all filled with a trust on fire conjure a deep terror in me. What if I am wrong? The fear enters my heart. Fear that I have made a horrible mistake in encouraging her back up the tower to face the flame. If she does not jump now, she will believe it is impossible and it will be my fault for fueling the flame of fear. 

“Your courage,” I say finally. “Repeat after me,” I say.

“My fear is big.”

“My fear is big.”

“But my courage is bigger.”

“But my courage is bigger.”

“Now say it with me, together.”

“My fear is big, but my courage is bigger.”

“AGAIN,” I say,

“MY FEAR IS BIG BUT MY COURAGE IS BIGGER.”

“MY FEAR IS BIG BUT MY COURAGE IS BIGGER.”

“MY FEAR IS BIG BUT MY COURAGE IS BIGGER.”

“THREE. TWO. ONE.” I yell, and we jump. We fly through the crisp summer morning and plunge through the heart of that damned fear breathing dragon. 

                          Epilogue

Later, over milk and cookies, I ask her to remember this moment when fear crept in and made a home in her heart for an entire day and night – when fear thought it had won and she had been defeated. Only for her to stand back up and face fear –  that it is never too late to face your fear. Remember this moment every time you are nervous or afraid, remember that you have proven you can defeat fear, that your courage is bigger.

With much love and respect,

Leo Jenkins