Bloody Toes

When I was younger, I would always stub my big toe. I would stub my toe on anything from stairs to the door, to a chair. So when I was younger, my grandfather would bandage up my toe for me. And when he was bandaging my toe, he would always tell me the story of how his big toe got distorted. I always loved the story because it made me feel better. And while I was listening to the story, cringing at the pain, and giving the occasional nod, I realized he really understood what I was going through.

My grandfather told me this story all the time and now I want to make you feel better. For all the times you have hurt your toe this story will make you think, AT-LEAST-MY-TOE-WASN'T-THAT-BAD.

When my grandfather was nine or ten years old, he would ride his bike around the neighborhood. And the dangerous part is that they would ride barefoot. He was racing his friends and having a ball. Then suddenly, he felt his toe shoot a piercing pain up his leg. He said it felt like, when putting warm water on your hand after you had it in ice for a while. Then he looked down at his toe and his bike. The sight was disgusting. His whole top half of his toe had gotten stuck in the chain of the bike and his toe was bleeding a lot.

The neighborhood boys ran to get mama ( his mother and my great grandmother). When she came she immediately started scolding the boys and at my grandpa a lot. Mama was yelling at them for riding a bike without shoes on and how she warned them to be careful. She brought him to the emergency room. There they found out that they might just have to sow him up and they would not put the rest of his toe back on. But Mama would not have it, she made sure that they put the top half if his toe back on.

Eventually it healed and he was fine. His toe now has a curvy shape, like an hour glass just not as extreme. And my grandfathers deformed toe nail is black with specks of brown. His toe is safe for now, safe until he stubs it, and safe to walk on. My grandfather loves to tell me this story and I think it makes him happy to see how he can make me feel better just with his life stories.