When I was in first grade I had the prettiest teacher. Her name was Miss Peacock. I loved her. The fact that I loved her and that she was pretty has nothing to do with my story except that this experience happened while she was my teacher.

All of the children would go to the restroom together, either after recess or just a restroom break. It was always busy with girls coming in and out of the stalls. As this was a routine and we did it everyday, one little girl had pinched her fingers more than once in the cracks on the side of the stalls. She would stand with her back to the stall and put her fingers in the cracks on either side of the stall. I thought why does she do that? What is the fascination with putting your fingers in the cracks. I made a grave decision to put my fingers in to see what was like. As I did the child inside the stall opened the stall door which pinched my fingers, but especially my index finger on my right hand. I cried out in pain, and pulled my hand from the door. My pointy finger was bleeding and the skin was torn. I didn’t go to my teacher, I went straight to the nurse’s office. All the schools at that time had nurses at the school full time. I remember holding my hand in front of my face and crying hard as I walked to the nurses office. I knew she would help me and call my mama.

I remember laying on the small cot that was set up in the nurses office with bandages and ice on my finger while I waited for my mama to come get me and take me to the hospital. The pain coming from my hand was immense. I kept going over in my mind what had happened and thinking why did you do it? Why did you put your hand in the crack? I must have had bigger fingers than the little girl who I saw do it before, because she was never hurt like I was. It was one lesson that I will never forget of doing something dumb because you saw someone else do it.

We lived in the country, and the school was a distance away our home, so it was a little while until my mama got there. Then we had to drive to the hospital which was about a half an hour away. When we got to the hospital we found out that my finger was broken and was almost torn off just below my nail. It was stitched together and I was given a splint to hold my finger straight while it healed. I learned to write with my index finger straight in the splint. And it healed very well. I have good use of my finger, almost the same as the left index finger it just looks a little scarred up. My finger nail isn’t real pretty, but I’m ok with how it looks.

All said I learned a valuable lesson that day to choose wisely what you do, don’t follow others if their choices are negative, or have a negative outcome, think about consequences- they are part of life and are based on laws that cannot be changed. I feel sad writing about this experience, because I know that little girl (me) that struggle so much, but I always know the woman I have become and how I have overcome so many challenges and come out of those experiences successfully. I always felt God’s love for me as a child and I knew He would help me with life.