Bravery

There is apparently a difference between courage and bravery. According to the infinitely generous source of Wikipedia, it revolves around the presence or the absence of fear. Courage is action in the face of fear whilst bravery seems to be fearless action. To really understand the semantics for this reflection, I’d have to climb into the mind of an energetic Jack Russel which I doubt would be possible even for Cesar Millan, that most famous celebrity dog whisperer.

What I saw, whilst his half sister from another litter was struggling in the slobbering jowls of a massive Rottweiler may well have been a mixture of both. But for now, I’ll call it bravery.

A fair estimate of an adult Rottweiler comes in at fifty kilograms. It appears a whole lot larger from ground level after being flattened by its charge, and I am not sure if I have felt a tackle like that since my fifteen minutes of rugby playing days in the South African Air Force. With my airpods scattered on the sidewalk still playing the dulcet tones of the poet David White and my phone in the street gutter, it felt as though I had hooked into a marlin. The problem was that one of my Jack Russels was the bait, and the other one was straining at his leash in an attempt to rescue his sibling.

Having seemingly done enough damage to the first dog, this land predator picked his beef with the second, and hoovered him up by the base of the spine and started to shake it around like a rag doll. Thankfully between the dog walker and my largely ineffectual stance on my knees in the gutter, the dogs were separated. Two days later, the stitches are healing, and although the injustice of paying a vet bill for the damage caused by anothers unrestrained dog is still present, at least the anger is slowly abating.

What remains clear though is the memory of bravery when a ten kilogram Jack Russel tries to even attempt to distract a fifty kilogram Rottweiler. Think Peter Steph du Toit coming round the blind side of a rugby scrum, and there in his direct path is your seven year old son prepared to take the hit. For that is the comparative differential in size.

As this whole ordeal unfolded in a matter of seconds which felt like hours, I kept having a single thought. Two years ago a young friend, then aged eleven, was horribly mauled by the same species of dog. The details of the attack are not important for this reflection, it is her recovery which captured our hearts. With too many stitches to count, let alone type, her first words as she woke were to her night nurse who was sitting at her bedside along with her parents.

“I am so sorry that I kept you awake.”

Needless to say, the magic of this brave young girl wandered and weaved through the wards of the Millpark hospital, and in an instant she had the full love and support of the entire staff. Medical records don’t say whether this contributed to her healing, but her recovery was miraculous, and as the adrenaline wanes from my own ordeal, it is still replaced with tears of inspiration caused by a brave young soul more worried about someone’s sleep than her own searing pain.

As I sit with my stitched up dogs on my lap, in the warmth of our living room, I am watching a quite different fight break out in the so called “Land of the free, and the home of the brave.”

Taking a knee in America has become a completely contrasting phrase today than from when the NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick planted his patella in protest against police brutality and systemic racism during the playing of their national anthem nearly four years ago in August of 2016. His action was passive and peaceful.

The knee to the neck for nine minutes which killed George Floyd was needlessly violent and was beyond the boundaries of brutality.

If America is really going to be the “Home of the Brave”, then they will need to be exactly that. They will need to understand the meaning of a home, and the qualities required to be brave.

Unless you have a Mike Tyson accent, there is a big difference between showing faith and showing your face, and whilst anyone can stand in front of a church holding The Good Book in their hand, it will take real bravery for the same person to live the message of that Book from his heart.

Whether fear is present or not, bravery and courage are actions taken from a deep and inspiring place.

A Jack Russel knows this. And so too does a remarkable young lady who never stopped smiling through all her stitches and surgeries.

I wonder if when history writes its report card on Leadership, whether the leaders at the top of the class will be those who were brave in this moment?

I hope so.

Steve Hall

(With thanks for the soul and the sparkle of Kate Chapman – keep smiling brave girl)

And indeed, to all the millions of people out there who smile through their sorrow, and tap dance through their trauma. Be Brave!