Hemingway Lied, My Knees Died

There is a classic Hemingway quote that reads, “We’re all a little stronger in the broken places.”

Now, I love Hemingway’s works. A Moveable Feast. Farewell to Arms. The Old Man and the Sea. No one can argue with those strokes of genius. But suggesting that a person is actually stronger in their broken places? Well, that seems a stretch too far, especially for any runner who is working hard to overcome the lifelong skull drudgery of dealing with a serious knee injury.

I don’t want to doubt Hemingway. In fact, I have to hand it to ‘ole salty:  Hemingway knew a thing or two about pain.

In World War I, as an ambulance driver in combat, Hemingway was injured so badly he was sent home from war. Many years later while on safari in Africa, he was severely injured in a plane crash that nearly took his life. Both incidents left him in pain and with a significantly lower quality of life than he had enjoyed before. It's clear he spoke with authority on the topic.

However, Hemingway ended up disproving his own theory in the end.  After presumably attempting to drink away the pain for years with little to no success, Hemingway shot himself. And while many suggest it was the result of mental illness, I suspect it was largely from the chronic pain. Maybe the old guy just couldn’t take it anymore.

The final chapter hasn’t yet been written for the rest of us. I’m three years out from my own injury but still putting up with physical limitation and pain, although the days are long gone since I felt like pulling a Hemingway.

Time will tell. It will tell how many miles we'll log. How many races we’ll run. How many more years we'll be able to forge on these creaky knees that God and our mamas gave us. But just for tonight, I'm perfectly content to pop a cork, settle in, and raise a glass to the Old Man and my Knees…