Stretch...

 

 

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been faced with heavy challenges.  I think we all have, thanks to the pandemic.  Everyone I know has endured tough times and we all just get through it the best we can. 

For myself, family and friends have made things easier to bear.  Through it all, people have continued to tell me that they’re impressed with my strength.  With that, I have to disagree.  I’m not especially strong,  Perhaps I’m just resilient.

Thinking about it all reminds me that in the mid-seventies, my brother Matt had a toy called Stretch Armstrong.  Stretch was a muscle-bound strongman.  When you pulled his arms and legs, he could stretch from one corner of the room to the other.  When you let go and stopped tugging, he would revert back to his original size and shape.

His power was not his muscles.  His power was his resilience.  His strongman body was just a latex exterior.  His true strength came from within.  Maybe that’s who I am!

I’m not some super-strong being that is taking on the world.  Over the years, original Stretch Armstrong was discontinued and then returned and adapted to other characters and models.  Is it so impossible to believe that, while under anesthesia during kidney  donation, I could have been injected with Armstrong material to get me through what was to come?

Okay.  I probably was not remade as Stretch.  But I do believe I’ve remade myself with resilience.  With infusions of love and support from those who have held me up, I am Resilient Armstrong.  And I am grateful.