Family Traditions

I'm lucky I only broke my ribs on the right side in 10 places, snapped my collarbone, and collapsed a lung.  It could have been much worse.  I hit the ground at very high speed and from a bit of an altitude after things went suddenly very wrong while riding a young horse this weekend.  It hurt much worse than giving birth, I can tell you that.  I count over the places where I might have decided differently and avoided the experience.  And yet this too is what it is all about, my life.  My parents and I compare notes on broken collarbone, broken rib experiences. My mother took a big spill chasing wild goats at South Point when I was about five. My father got bucked off his big red half-draft mare (the ranch's all-time top bone-breaker) and went back to work in two days, back to roping cattle two weeks later.  He's unbelievably tough, but he didn't break as many bones as me.