Overview:

A college professor accidentally fell in front of her class, unable to move for a few minutes due to her skirt and loose boot strings. Her students stared at her in shock, but one helped her up and offered a chair. The professor finished teaching, but had to laugh at herself and her students joined in. She later made the connection to her lecture topic of learning from real-life examples and realized that laughter is sometimes the best medicine.

Before I could stop it from happening, I was already on my side on the floor and
unable to move for at least a few minutes.

It was actually probably just a few seconds, but the stunned looks on my students’ faces made it seem much longer. I left like a California Redwood tree as I was falling and like I should have been yelling, “Timber!”

What was the “it?” I fell on my side in front of a college class that I was teaching a number of years ago.

Because I fell on my left side, I couldn’t easily maneuver my body so I could sit up. And because the loose strings on my boots kept my feet twisted together, I couldn’t even attempt to stand up. 

Because my skirt was so long, they didn’t know that I couldn’t stand up since they couldn’t see my legs. My students didn’t know if they should help me or if they would get in trouble if they laughed at me.

So, they did neither and kept staring at me vacantly as I struggled to roll over and get up.

One student got over her shock and quickly assisted me in getting up; she even offered me a chair to sit in so I could finish teaching class without hurting myself. My now wounded body and pride wouldn’t let me sit in the chair. By the time class was over, I regretted hastily pushing the chair back into the corner since both my upper arm and back were starting to throb with pain.

From that point until the end of class, every time I moved during the lecture, I could feel the students watching to make sure I didn’t fall again. It was a little awkward in the classroom as I tried to finish teaching about learning from examples in our everyday lives. I ended up telling them that it was okay for them to laugh and we had a quick 2-minute laugh break which we all needed.

Finally, we were able to finish class but not before the topic of my fall came up a few more times. As they filed out of the room when the class was over, a few jokingly told me to be careful going home; one male student even apologized for laughing at me.

If there was a deeper spiritual lesson, I may have missed it. Maybe I should learn to be more graceful; I’ve been working on that one since I was a child…obviously without much success. Rather than get angry or more embarrassed, I made the connection to the lecture topic of learning from real-life examples.

Without trying, it seems like I’d given them a real-life example of trying to learn how not to die of embarrassment. As I’ve gotten older, I have also learned to laugh more at myself and my many failings.

Proverbs 17:22 teaches an important lesson that laughter is sometimes the best medicine when it says, “A cheerful heart is good medicine.…”

Shewanda Riley (Aunt Wanda), PhD, is a Fort Worth-based author of “Love Hangover: Moving from Pain to Purpose After a Relationship Ends” and “Writing to the Beat of God’s Heart: A Book of Prayers for Writers.” Email her at preservedbypurpose@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @shewanda. You can also listen to her podcast at www.chocolateauntiepodcast.com.