HANGING ON BY THE DOT

Bone on bone. Two words you never want to hear.  But we did, a year ago today. Instead of a fun birthday celebration for Burt, we sat eating at our favorite meat and three, mulling over the situation. It would require a lengthy recovery - six months to a year. Frankly, it was a lot to take in. But we had been taking it all in for almost twenty years.

I had just bought a used piano from a friend - $100. I learned to play the piano in 3rd grade. Since getting married, my dream was to have one in our home. Fifteen years later, I finally got my wish.

Only one day. I cleaned and polished. With the piano in the house, I felt like I had gotten back a piece of me. I knew the classics and scads of scales, Dan Fogelberg and Stairway to Heaven. The piano was my voice, a barometer of my day. I turned to the piano in joy, in sorrow.

Being Father's Day weekend, I fixed Burt a favorite meal of hamburgers and onion rings.The onion rings were delicious. We three ate onion rings until we could pop. I didn't make them very often. Onion rings are not that hard to prepare (I see a new post in my future) but there is a big mess of grease, dried flour and egg. Afterwards, I wanted to run in and play the piano for a minute, until I could clean up. And I'm also never one to jump at work when there is something more fun to do.

I was on the phone with Val, playing hymns and singing happily. I wanted her to hear my new piano. She said she would never forget what she heard. There was a big scream, commotion and then Burt got on the line and said he had to call the ambulance.

I will never forget the sound in my head. The piano bench broke on my ankle. I had never broken a bone. When the firemen arrived they said they had to wait for the paramedics. The medics arrived and said "Yes, it looks like..." They secured my leg, lifted me up on the gurney and put me in the back of the ambulance. It was 6 o'clock in the afternoon but not a single neighbor came out to see why a firetruck and an ambulance had raced down our street. Cate got to ride shotgun without the sirens. Burt followed in the car.

That one minute changed our lives, as "one minute you are fine..." . The life changing in an instant resides on slippery slopes and floors, inside of cars or four inches of looking away for just a minute. An inadequate amount of life changing is the lucky Publishers' Clearing House, "Mama, there is this boy", I got the job; sometimes, it seems that way.

Surgery with pins, a six week recovery in a hot pink cast and family and friends filling in the pieces. Many years of normalcy. But slowly, the bones gave into progressively worsening arthritis.  Twenty years of later - debilitating movement, range of motion with stiffening and swelling.  Now we were considering a major surgery we hoped would cure the situation for another 10-15 years.  Measuring my steps in my head had become second nature to me.  I was afraid of falling. My strength was nil. Knowing how far I could push myself which wasn't very far. I was becoming so crippled to the point, I watched commercials noticing how people walked and ran.

I was only going to check out the situation. Words like no weight for three months, two weeks in a cast, elevate, walker, wheelchair, cane, no driving.  P.T. The unknown. The complications. Basically, a total disruption for months which would rehabilitate me but meant never ending work for my family. Because I would need almost total help. I signed on the dotted line.

***

937,000 acres of farmland glistening gold as seen overhead in the flyby, a tourist of another kind. Do you take the picture in the moment of?  The tragedy is spread out before me but on the ground, eye level is watching water rise hoping the levee will hold, the bags are packed full and high.  Men stand looking at the disappearance of a road as a car lot inches into brown. A home surrounded by the gold, no drive or road to anywhere. After a few inches, what is the difference. The gold ebbs away from a piece of road, the slope of a yard but stretches into the culvert. High. Low. Gilded fields with an occasional green burst. My birds eye view. I can see the water poured out in days of rain across the plain, but there a house is stretching high where I can see just fields away, gold. I spy a red dot, a bulls' eye on a patch of green. An outbuilding steps away from the house still holding fast, a green rick rack pressing a border. To high ground. Red dot. Not enough to go around. Fool's Gold puddles into mud, down streams sixty-four million dollars.  

***

Standing next to her, I was a giant. She was a grown woman, the size of an eleven year old girl. She was holding a blouse. I nodded to let her step in front of me. I had several items to purchase. She never acknowledged my offer, which she took. In the South, this would be a double thank you. The woman looked across the store to a man waiting. There was no color in her clothing or face. There was no second of wasted energy in her movement. Her hands were the only life in her body. At first, I turned toward my daughter and raised my eyebrows for the "quick" purchase I had so graciously acquiesced to.

The longer we stood at the counter, I realized her pain. Past or present, a slippery slope had changed her. Her frame was so slight as if she had relinquished what made up her life.  She was in the grip. There is no pain without fear. With no comfort zone, she balanced as if on the top of a pinhead, the circumference of one wound tightly. Standing, barely a dot of existence.

***

Five fingers feverishly reaching out. Just the hem, the tip of the fringe. A fleeting chance in the dust of the road. Everything was gone; the money, the physicians, the hope, the joy, twelve years. The hemorrhaging was getting worse. Did she want twelve more years, living a life unclean, without ceasing?

He was surrounded by a large, unrelenting crowd. People shouting to get his attention. People bumping into him to tell them their stories. The disciples did their best to protect him.

If I can just touch the fringe, just the brush of it on the tip of my finger. That's all it will take.

Jesus stopped and turned around. The crowd still moved around him. He saw the woman, still leaning over. She looked up, realizing she had been noticed. Jesus said, "Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well." I know. I know the minutes of your day. I see you physically breaking down, overcome by a flood of depression. I know the anxiety of your never ending condition.

In one instant, the woman was healed.

The last hope in frailty, flood, fear. Faith to let go - of the dotted line, a red dot, the dot of a pinhead - and touch the fringe of the hem of the cloak worn by Jesus.