She was destined for greatness

Janet is one of those women they write books about. She was destined for greatness.

Growing up in a family of high achievers, she had no alternative but to become a high achiever herself. She really didn’t want to be one, but there was really no viable alternative. Her brothers left home when they were barely in their teens. John left home at 12 to find himself and hasn’t been heard from since. While Richard never did want to find himself, he was very confident as to who he was. But because John left at 12, he knew he had no alternative but to leave as soon as he was 13. The only problem was that he had no place to live and so ended up in the French Foreign Legion, where he did extremely well. Janet’s last brother, Gordon, when he turned 11 brought his family together one cold winter’s evening while a roaring fire was threatening to burn down the house and told his parents and Janet who was still living at home, that he wanted to be a fireman when he grew up.

That kind of disappointed the other three, as they didn’t think it was much of a challenge. Gordon could tell by the looks of disappointment on their faces that he wasn’t doing much to endear himself to his family. So, he had to think of something more challenging.

“But not here in this country,” he added not quite sure why he did. His parents looked at each other and smiled while Janet looked straight ahead at the fire knowing that any second now her brother, who was standing with his back to the flames, was going to go up in a loud clap of thunder. She began counting down the seconds until it became obvious that she needed to warn her brother. But how to do so, was an issue. Yes, she could say, ‘stand back. You’re about to be consumed by the flames,’ but considering he was going to be a firefighter that didn’t make much sense. She felt that his reply would be something like, ‘oh don’t be silly,’ or, ‘I love the smell of smoke in the morning’.

So, as she kept thinking of ways to warn him and discarding each one methodically, she noticed a flame beginning to flicker at the bottom of Gordon’s pants. She looked at her parents who noticed the little flame as well, but felt it wasn’t their job to warn him. They wanted to see if he was really fire fighting material.

“Your pants are on fire!” Janet finally said.

Gordon smiled and replied, “yes, I’ve heard that term before,” but remained there trying to convince his parents that he indeed wanted to be a fireman, but in Cambodia.

“Why Cambodia?” they asked in unison. “Do they have fire engines there?”

“No they don’t,” he replied with the flames now climbing unabated up his trouser leg, until his right pocket belched smoke. It was right then that Gordon realised something was amiss and once he determined that indeed, his pants were on fire as Janet said they were, and she wasn’t using some childish phrase, he ran outside and dived into the snow with dire consequences. He hit his head on the pavement, splitting it open.

The snow turned red and his parents clapped believing that it was all part of his stunt, so that they would agree to his running off to Cambodia. But instead, Janet ran outside while her parents screamed at her to put a coat on.

“You’ll catch your death!” her mother shouted, but Janet was not deterred. She got Gordon up off the ground and that’s when her parents panicked. They saw blood spurting out of a huge gash in his forehead and called immediately for an ambulance. Janet stemmed the bleeding by wrapping a scarf around his neck until his eyes began to bulge. The ambulance driver, when he arrived, immediately put Gordon’s head in plastic bag, stating that at least if the blood continued to flow, they would capture it in the bag. Then they would let him drink it so he would get it back into his system. Sounded improbable, but who were they to argue.

Gordon did recover, because apparently there was some new research that showed that such an improbability was indeed probable.

“It’s the law of averages,” the doctor said. “Most times it doesn’t work because it just flows right back out and by the time they get to the hospital it’s too late. But in Gordon’s case, it worked.”

“He is on his way to Cambodia to become a fireman,” Gordon’s father told the doctor who smiled.

“Not right now.” The doctor replied, “in fact, not for a very long time. The stitches in his forehead have to heal so I suggest bed rest for a few months before you let him leave for Cambodia.”

This gave Janet, who was 9 years old, an idea. Yes, she was too young to leave home just yet. She had about three years in which to make her plans.

And when that time came, Gordon was already in Cambodia sending back photos of himself on Instagram fighting fires in coconut trees and smiling and that was when Janet chose to tell her parents she was leaving.

“Off to where?” she was asked.

“I want to be a nurse.”

“Oh, how wonderful,” replied her father, “are you going to be the only one who stays close to home, so you can take care of us when we get old?”

“No,” replied Janet, “I’m going to Crimea.”

“Crimea!” both parents shouted, “why Crimea?”

“There’s a war going on the there and Florence Nightingale needs help.”

Her parents looked at each other. “Say hi to Gordon when you see him.” Her father replied sadly.

Janet just shook her head. She realised it was no use trying to get her parents to understand that Crimea and Cambodia only start with the same letter but aren’t even in the same hemisphere. “Ok,” she replied not wanting to disappoint them and headed up to bed.