Doh Knock It ’Til You Try It

I once told my mother she didn’t really need her cane. Life had a way of correcting me.

As I mentioned before, my mom has not been well for a long time. Whenever we leave the house, she uses a cane. Outside, her body is visibly unsteady. She walks slowly and cautiously, often hugging walls. Inside the house, though, she moves around without the cane.

That contrast confused me. I struggled to understand how both things could be true at the same time.

One day, we were in town together. As we walked along the street, I suggested—rather casually—that maybe the cane was more of a crutch than a real necessity. In my mind, I had already figured it out. I told myself it was her fear of crowds and that,when she saw people, anxiety crept in, her body reacted, and the cane became something she relied on more than she needed to.

She paused, then reluctantly listened to me.

I took the cane from her. Almost immediately, I saw her body betray her. She became visibly shaky, swaying as she tried to walk, nearly falling. The sight made my stomach drop. I felt awful for what I had done and quickly returned the cane to her. I never attempted that again.

Fast forward to 2025, I began stumbling when I walk, feeling faint, unsteady on my feet, and struggling to climb stairs. At first, I tried to manage quietly—grasping at invisible walls, reaching into the air for support that wasn’t there. Then I started walking with my head down, as if that alone could steady me.

Eventually, someone suggested I use an umbrella. For a while, it seemed to help. It gave me something to lean on and helped me feel more balanced when my body couldn’t quite find its footing on its own.

One day, though, while climbing my stairs, my knees felt too weak. The umbrella wasn’t strong enough. My mother, who had observed my struggle, suggested I swap it out for her cane. I gladly took it.

In that moment, it dawned on me that I was in the same position she had been in all along—steady enough at home, but unsteady outside.

All I could blurt out was, “Doh knock it ’til you try it.” A phrase we say so easily. One I had finally earned the right to say.

It was in that moment that I completely understood why my mother needed the cane whenever she left the house. It wasn’t a crutch. It was a useful aid. A quiet support that allowed her body to do safely what it still could.

How often do we judge the way others move through the world without knowing what it costs them to do so? How often do we explain away someone else’s limitations because we’ve never had to live inside them?

Sometimes understanding doesn’t come from observation. It comes from experience.

And sometimes, the lesson is as simple—and as humbling—as realizing that the thing you once questioned is the very thing that helps you stand.