{"id":10443,"date":"2019-03-04T10:04:29","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T15:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=10443"},"modified":"2019-03-04T22:23:31","modified_gmt":"2019-03-05T03:23:31","slug":"the-reflex-from-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2019\/03\/04\/the-reflex-from-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"The Protective Reflex"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>She extended her hand across my chest as she slammed on the car brakes. Umi (Arabic for mother) always did that every time she \u00a0she braked really hard. I&#8217;ve always wondered why but never got around to asking her.<\/p>\n<p>One time I did. &#8220;Why did you put your hand in front of me like that every time you brake hard, Umi? I&#8217;m wearing a seatbelt&#8221;, I asked just as she pressed the brakes a little roughly. Her answer was based on experience.<\/p>\n<p>Umi told me, once when I was small, I sat at the backseat as she drove. I wasn&#8217;t wearing a seatbelt, as lots of children back then didn&#8217;t. And she hit the brakes really hard as the car in front suddenly stopped. Inertia had me in its grasp, and I tumbled forward right into the shotgun seat.\u00a0<em>&#8220;I was so scared, you were so quiet after&#8221;,\u00a0<\/em>she said. I wasn&#8217;t hurt or anything but I quietly stared back at her, in shock.<\/p>\n<p>Thats when I knew her reflex was more than just one. It was her protecting me, to make up for the time she didn&#8217;t. I heard her regret in her voice and just like any mother, she wished she did more to protect me, her precious child, from that sudden jolt.<\/p>\n<p>I was touched, deeply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>She extended her hand across my chest as she slammed on the car brakes. Umi (Arabic for mother) always did that every time she \u00a0she braked really hard. I&#8217;ve always wondered why but never got around to asking her. One time I did. &#8220;Why did you put your hand in front of me like that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2195,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10443"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2195"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10443"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10457,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10443\/revisions\/10457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}