Many years ago, my two sons, a snowboarding buddy of theirs and I went for the day to the local Braunwald ski hill here in Switzerland about 45 mins from Zurich. I can’t remember why I chose to not bring my skis, but I ended up renting. I was the last one in our group to get on the hill and we agreed to meet at the top chair lift. As we finally got to ski together, both my skis started to do this weird vibrating thing that I have never experienced in some 50 years of skiing. (OMG! Did I just said 50. As Ellen D would say, “Anyway…. “)
I had the “feeling”…
that something was really wrong. My logical brain said “Ok, swap them. Put the left on the right.” I tried it, but the same ‘odd’ heavy vibration. I told the kids to stop and to not move, but couldn’t explain why, other than to say, we had to go in and get me some new skis.
No sooner had we started to ski towards the shop at the bottom, when my two lads flew off a jump, soon followed by their buddy Peter. My two landed safely, but Peter unfortunately didn’t. Within the half hour, I was calling his Mom state-side, to say that we were on our way to emerg back in Zurich to fix her eldest son’s broken arm.
Did it have to be on my watch!
Fast forward about ten years, as an empty nester. Here I am on the top of Flims-Laax taking a photo on our last run. Yes, mutual decision to quit early after a long lunch stop in the chalet to watch the Aussie Open match with Federer Nadal! Besides it was our first day of the ski season and thought it best do as my Dad used to say… “Ease no push”. Once the gloves were back on and we were shoving off down the piste,
I felt my skis oddly vibrate…
The thought of the “Peter experience” sprung to mind, so I stopped. I paused and got distracted by shooting this bit of live video footage of Mark, my husband. (Listen carefully to the background music …I didn’t get it until now!)
The next thing I knew, we were going down a very lovely small off-shoot winding path and heading totally in the wrong direction. Our car was parked at Laax and we were pointed towards Flims! We ran into a family tobogganing and asked if there was any way of correcting things. They said no, but if we kept on to the bottom, we could either take the chairlift back up to the top and keep transferring over to Laax side or take a bus or taxi back.
No sooner had they waved us Canucks off down the meandering path to the lift, that…
my husband did a cartwheel right in front of me!
His skis popped off, headed off piste on their own and he collapsed in a crumpled heap. The family hovered above on the hill in anticipation to see if Mark got up and was ok. I checked on him as he attempted to right himself and see if he could stand. I waved to them and then dove into the snow bank to recover his skis. Mark tried putting them back on to give it a go. Flip and bang! Cartwheel again and back on his butt and in worse shape.
I signalled up to the family and the Dad, who came with his toboggan and actually pulled Mark all the way to the top of the next lift while another total stranger, a woman named Angelica – of course – joined our band and carried the poles for me while she called ahead to the ski patrol. Within 40 minutes we were down in the doctors office. I was given a lift right to our car with the skis, while Mark was having his X-ray. All with total Swiss efficiency, as within an hour, we had a doctor’s report saying that his leg was not broken, but…his GP in Zurich would need to order an MRI the following morning.
Oh why didn’t I say anything about the vibrations. Some intuitive with premonitions! His left knee is shot and we’ll be visiting the surgery department sometime soon. It’s odd, but I feel like it’s a case of somethings ‘have to’ or will occur – like bits we write into our karmic chart. We can’t see the reason right now, but all will come clear at some point with the “why”. What’s your moment like this …. ?