Several years ago a bunch of friends challenged themselves to participate in a Savage race. It is one of those excruciating ordeals involving mud and pools of ice and hurling your aching body over fences. Lots of fun. 

 

But they found out that they could do it, in spite of the frigid weather and exhausting obstacles. They crawled through barbed wire, scrambled over burning logs, and scaled walls with barely a knobby lump to hold on to. Fortunately, they did it in pairs. Your partner was there to encourage you, and quite literally lift you up. After such an ordeal they were bonded for life. The clammy embraces at the finish line were about something more substantial than looking your best.  

 

Since then, those women have faced other kinds of endurance tests, like weeks of illness, and stacks of bills. The thing about the race is, they could study up on exactly how long it was, and what would be expected of them. Real life, not so much. 

 

While I have never joined the hundred thousand die hards who sign up each year and pay good money to thrash themselves in an endurance race, life has brought me to my knees on occasion. And the partner whose hand stretches toward me when the mud is up to my ankles is one I am bonded to. Forever.