And Now This...

[HAP]

Dear friends,

Sometimes, I think I am reenacting Job. Then I look around and realize we all are.

My latest chapter begins yesterday morning. I was on a 14 mile training walk for the Marathon Walk two weeks from Sunday. I'd just left the cemetery when I had a sudden pain in my right knee. It went away, came back, went away--so I decided to cut my walk short. By the time I got home, though, I knew I needed medical advice, so I called my doctor. The receptionist said they would get back to me.

In the meantime, I did what one does with knee injuries: elevation and ice. I didn't hear again from the doctor until late in the afternoon--and then set up an appointment for this morning at 9:30, after confirming the ice and elevation thing were the way to go.

I went in this morning, cane in hand and still limping.

The doctor has outlined three scenarios--none of them very good. Best case, I've strained or sprained my medial collateral ligament. A couple of weeks of rest and therapy and it should be OK. Medium case, I am running out of cartilage in my right knee. Again rest will help, but will only ease the problem. In this case, this year is likely my last Walk. Worst case, the cartilage in the knee is gone and I am going bone on bone. Short of a new knee, I'm done with any walking greater than a quarter mile and running all together.

I had a series of x-rays done of my knee after I saw the doctor. I likely will hear nothing about those before Monday because we are going into the weekend. And of course, I'm supposed to be at a charity golf event on Monday.

None of this compares, of course, with what many of you are going through in terms of health issues. It's just one more thing seemingly designed to frustrate me--and Gods, but am I frustrated.

Peace,

Harry

[mfh]

So sorry about your knee. I hope they surprise you and get the results to you today...why not call this afternoon? I have learned that sometimes these results are sitting there and the call gets back burnered....so I call.

Take care of that knee.

[MartyT]

Harry, my dear, I've always said that one of the most difficult things about grief is that life keeps happening to us, even though we are grieving. I'm so sorry that life has thrown you yet another unexpected curve ball, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that when the results are in, your news falls into the best case scenario category. But damn it all, no matter how willing our spirit, our flesh may not always cooperate, and nature does have a way of forcing us to stop pushing too hard . . .

As one who's endured a number of total joint replacements over the years, I understand completely that awful feeling that your body is not holding up as well as your mind. It doesn't matter how well you've cared for your body, how good your intentions, or how noble your plans to further your cause. When your physical health fails you like this, it is beyond frustrating. Scream at the heavens if you must, and allow yourself to feel your feelings about this. We all know how very unfair it is. ♥

[kayc]

Harry,

I am so sorry, I know how much the walks mean to you. Could you go in a cart or something? Just so you can be there and support those who can walk?

I hope you took Mary's advice and called the doctor before they closed. And I truly hope you'll stay off your knee for now, skip the golf event. Maybe you're supposed to slow down a bit?

[Wifflesnook]

Harry, I think after deep loss we teeter along a tight rope keeping going by sheer will power, but then when another blow strikes our foundation is so weak we falter easily. I am so sorry for this and I hope we hear that the best scenario is the one. Jan

[mfh]

Jan, nicely said. Mary

[feralfae]

Dear Harry,

Your life has had too many losses lately, and too much trauma. I cannot think how the Universe could be sending any more clear messages to your to step back, slow down, take it easy, be gentle with yourself, exercise great compassion and care for your body, give your heart a time of healing, and to simply take care of all of who you are as a being.

But just in case any small part of you is not getting the message, see all of the above.

Things will go on without you. Life will keep happening every minute. No one of us is indispensable to our projects or efforts; someone will carry on, or it will be there for us to pick up and carry again when we are stronger, rested, more in balance, healed, restored, rejuvenated, back to center.

Harry, before you get hit in the head with the 2x4, which I have had happen several times, do yourself a favor, and stand down for a while. When we ignore the smaller messages, sometimes the only way to get our attention is through forcing us to have a time out.

Maybe if you can give up all the effort, working, trying, and walking, and simply sit and listen for a while, you will hear some things that will help you to heal your heart. It is hard to hear our inner guide when we are busy doing. Can you just stop and walk away from it all, and put it all down, and let your spirit come to rest in a time of meditation and listening for a little while? Can you go into your own wilderness, to your own mountain top, into your own cozy cave, and be in peace for a while?

I know it is easier to run around and be busy, to keep the meditative centering at bay, but you have that potential to be still and listen. You write poetry that speaks of a listening heart, of times of reflection. Can you give that listening heart all the time it needs to help you to realign what needs to be brought into balance within you? Can you enter into a state of being and stay there for as long as it takes to walk out with a lot more healing?

This is longer than I intended. nattering.

*<twinkles>*

fae

[KarenK]

Harry, I am so sorry his has happened. Life definitely has away of slapping us in the face, doesn't it? Please listen to our Fae & just take it easy. Something that everyone has been asking me to do. I know how important this walk is to you & hard for you not to participate, but just this once...........

Love,

Karen

[kayc]

I hear what fae is saying and she is the right person to deliver this message...she has been there. It is so true. Instead of fighting against what has happened, embrace it and the time you have to just "be"...I had a whole series of injuries following my retirement and spent most of last winter laid up from one thing or another. My torn tendon has never alleviated, it plagues me but I get by. The doctors have not seemed interested in surgery, perhaps its the lousy insurance I have, so to some extent I have to live with it. I've always been invincible and it's hard to think of yourself as not, yet getting older requires some adjustment in our thinking. I know none of this will be welcomed by you.

[enna]

I am sorry that you have this setback, Harry. Perhaps it is a gentle warning for you to slow down. We have to listen to our bodies. It is not as easy to spring back for some of us at our age ~ me, not you. After my knee injury I am still using my cane. The walker is close by for when I lose confidence.

[HAP]

Dear friends,

When I first started looking for a teaching job, the market was difficult. It took me a year to find regular work as a daily sub in two different school districts--and another year beyond that to find permanent work--and I had to leave everything and everyone I knew behind to get it. Every day presented a new obstacle in that two years. I could have found a job in retail management easily. I had an impressive track record in that. But I wouldn't be able to make a real difference in people's lives if I did. But I could have walked away--seen all the difficulty as a sign that was not a direction I should go

When Jane and I first met we were both working in a school district no one cared about. I'd been hired as a change agent as much as I had been hired as a teacher. But the job was insanely difficult. I lacked administrative and political support for most of what needed doing--and by October, I'd had enough. I could have walked away--some would say should have walked away. The decision to stay had nothing to do with Jane. We'd had that encounter in the copy room and talked during lunch duty--but there was no visible evidence she felt as I did. Every sign said I should go do something else somewhere else.

My experience with negative signs is quite the opposite of most folks'. The more obstacles that get thrown in my path, the more I know I am on the right path--that those obstacles are there either to test the strength of my resolve or to attempt to prevent me from getting to the place that path leads--and where it is I am most needed.

Sometimes, like water that encounters a rock it cannot move initially, I am forced to stop--pooling up behind the obstacle In my way until there is enough there to either move the obstacle or find a new path to flow around it. But like water, I never actually stop moving even in those seemingly quiet moments. My real problem with the enforced immobility of this knee issue is less that I may not be able to undertake the Marathon Walk two weeks from now than that walking creates the stillness in which my best meditation arises. It does not take my meditation away from me, but it does make getting there and staying there more difficult. Burn down the place you pray or meditate and you will understand the true meaning for me of not being able to walk when and where and for as long as I want to. It's not that I can't, only that it is more difficult.

Of course everything I do derives from--and takes place in, most of the time--a meditative state. The letters and articles I write don't grow out of a frenetic attempt to avoid reality--though I am certain they look like that from the outside. Rather, they are a part of my efforts to come to terms with the things and events around me. When I write a fundraising letter, for example, I am also constructing a means of putting my loss in a context that helps me deal with it. I am not as altruistic as people think I am--I am just willing to use the products of my efforts at dealing with my grief to benefit others to try to prevent them from having to experience the grief I am going through sooner rather than later.

Fae subscribes to the idea that no one is indispensable and, to a degree, I agree with her. But this is not always so. I've watched two newspapers founder and go under after I left them. I've watched a school system I helped build collapse for 20 years after a number of the founders left or were driven out and replaced by people who did not understand the original vision or what it meant. I worry about the system Jane and I led for so many years as the people who executed that vision even after we left, retire or move on. A single individual in a small enterprise may, in fact, be indispensable if that person is lost at the wrong moment. The American Revolution does not succeed without George Washington, without John Adams, without Thomas Jefferson, without Henry Lee, without Ben Franklin. As a group they make it happen, yes. But remove any one of them and the results may be significantly different.

Before my father died and I had to vanish for a week, I'd been feeding and watering a stray cat that appeared in our neighborhood a couple of years ago. It had come to expect the occasional morsel at my door--though it would not let me get close to it. When I vanished, so did that food. Last night, it was at my door for the first time since I got back, mewling for a dish of water. It was thinner than when I left--significantly so. My absence had not killed it, but the difference I had made in its life was visible.

This morning was my day to change the sugar water in the hummingbird feeders. A hummer sat on the feeder on the deck all morning waiting for the fresh food. The heat of the last few days had apparently made what was in the feeder unpalatable--it would not eat it. Instead, it sang to me as the water cooled and fluttered to me every time I set foot on the porch. It chirped at me as I replaced the feeder with fresh food.

These two events took me back to a story about the Buddha I remember reading when I first began exploringing the scriptures of that faith. It takes place in a previous life--before that entity achieved enlightenment. I was out walking in the jungle one day, the Buddha says, when I came across a tigress so weakened by hunger that she could not move to hunt to feed her cubs. I was move by great sadness and compassion. I walked up to her, willing her to kill me so her cubs could eat--but she was too weak. So I opened a vein so that she could lick my blood--which she did. But she was still too weak, so I sliced my own throat and lay down beside her to die. She and her cubs survived by this action.

I am not Buddha. I am not ready to kill myself for the sake of a tiger and her cubs. I cannot comprehend someone who would do so. But I can understand at a lesser level the meaning and need for compassion.

Every week, I lose someone I know to carcinoid cancer. Some weeks it is four or five. They leave behind children--often quite young--and husbands and wives and brothers and sisters and parents--and sometimes grandparents. I have it in my power to do something for them and for those they leave behind. While they live, I can give them hope and solace. When they are gone, I can hold their loved ones in my heart and in my mind and try to make their lives somehow better. It is cold comfort I can offer--I cannot cure the disease or make the pain of loss go away--only offer them a place by this or some other fire, and a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on, and an ear to listen.

I know that if I don't take care of myself, that shoulder will not be there. Perhaps some other shoulder will appear instead. But I don't--can't--know that. There is a constant, delicate balancing act between keeping myself together and being there for the people who need me now--and those who will need me later. The needs of the many always outweigh the needs of the one.

That doesn't mean I don't take a night off. It doesn't mean I don't schedule a week here and a week there for rest. But this year, every scheduled extended break has been shattered by death or some other crisis--the death of my father and niece being only the latest instances. It's not fair and it's not right--but it is what it is.

Every day--every act--heals my heart in some way. But every day seems determined to wound my heart as well. Buddha says life is suffering and Christians refer to it as "this veil of tears." The world is filled with suffering and with tears.

But there are bits of joy in it as well. Just before my knee decided to quit during my walk, I passed a woman pushing one of those athletic strollers. She had the roof up, so she could not see the smile on her child's face as she jogged along behind it. But I could see it--and it made me smile because there was such joy in it. It was a laughing smile that lit the world. It was a child's smile that said, "I'm in the world--and anything is possible."

It was the same smile I saw on Jane's face as she came down the aisle on our wedding day. It was the same smile that I used to see on the face in the mirror every morning--the same smile we greeted each other with every morning. We were in the world--and everything was possible.

The truth is, I am still in the world--we all are. We have to remember that everything is still possible. We just have to work to make it happen.

Peace,

Harry

[ohsosad]

My husband started a school for the performing arts. When he left after many years for another position, the school gradually faltered and eventually fell apart. He was indispensible.

[HAP]

Dear friends,

I think it is beginning to settle in on me how potentially life-changing this latest setback is--and how nasty.

Essentially, the two worst case scenarios mean I will no longer be able not only to walk, but unable to mow my own lawn or do the landscaping work I enjoy doing. Essentially, I am told that any walk of greater than 300 yards will cause significant damage and longterm pain. Even a trip to the grocery store involves doing more walking than I will be allowed to do. Even working in the vegetable garden might be beyond what I could safely do.

That terrifies me. Essentially, I'd be reduced to reading, writing and thinking. While I enjoy those things, being unable to engage in nearly any enjoyable physical activities is a hideous thing for me to contemplate--especially at 62.

I certainly hope this is only a sprained mcl. The alternatives are too horrible to contemplate--and yet that is what I have spent the last two days doing. Slowing down is one thing. Losing another large chunk of my identity is something else again.

I keep telling myself not to borrow trouble. But I can't get the idea out of my mind.

How the hell do I heal when the things that most help me heal are things I can no longer do? How do I stay healthy when the things that keep me healthy are things I can no longer do?

Part of me is so angry at everything and everyone right now that I want to stop being compassionate, stop caring, stop trying to do the right thing. I want to spit in God's eye--or whatever power there fare in the universe--and tell them to find someone else to torture.

I'll get over it. The habits are too strong to give up. But Gods, do I want to punch something.

I am going to the dinner after the golf tournament tomorrow, but have decided it is best I not play. If I am going to have any chance of walking any distance at all in two weeks, I need to keep resting this knee as much as i can.

Peace,

Harry

[kayc]

Harry, My heart goes out to you because I know how I'd feel if I could no longer walk Arlie or hit the beloved trails. But that would be a worst case scenario...for you I am truly hoping this is temporary until yo can heal or have surgery. Surely it will not be permanent! And while you may not make it back to your previous state, perhaps you will at least be granted an enjoyable life of activity, even if it's not what you would have wanted if given the choice. I am finding this to be true in my own situation. As I age, things happen that hinder my lifestyle and cause me pain, I have had to live with what I could not change while trying to minimize the damage in other things. Like my Neuropathy. That scares me. I'm doing all I can to keep it from worsening, but a certain amount is here to live with. It means I can't get up on the roof or ladder, and frankly, living alone, I really need to! It means, instead, I have to get someone else to and that's not always easy to find. Perhaps if I lived in a big city, it'd be easier, but then again, I feel like you might as well cut my right arm off, I LOVE country and nature!

I just hope you listen and heed what the doctors say and give yourself every best chance of recovery by NOT pushing it too soon. By the same token, with your drive, if what you need is physical therapy, I have no doubt you'll have full recovery!

[Wifflesnook]

Harry when do you find out? I feel for you because since my Pete died the walks I do with Kelbi are essential to me. We walk twice daily and only up to five miles but it has become so imprtant to my well being. We are all waiting and hoping. Jan

[Queeniemary]

Harry, I am so sorry for the problem with your knee. Having had knee problems for years, before finally having total knee replacements on both knees, I can certainly understand your frustration. I am hoping when you get the word from your doctor, it is the best case scenario, not any of the worst case scenarios.

Thinking of you, and knowing you will handle this additional issue in your usual rational way.

QMary

[HAP]

Dear friends,

No news today from the x-ray on Friday. The knee continues to feel a bit better--certainly less stiff than it has been. I will call the doctor in the morning and see if I can't shake something loose there.

Peace,

Harry

[enna]

Be patient, Harry. Our bodies are wonderful machines and most of the time they can heal themselves.

[kayc]

I too am hoping there will be a quick fix for this, and I hope you are getting some much needed rest this week.

[Queeniemary]

Fingers crossed here in the Ozarks for you Harry!!!

QMary

[ohsosad]

Harry,

We are anxious to hear what you have found out about your knee. Please write.

Rita

[HAP]

So far, there is nothing further to report--other than I am really getting annoyed with the doctor. I still have yet to hear the results of the x-ray from Friday. I called yesterday morning, was told they would get back to me, and they didn't.

Annoyingly, it feels a bit worse today than it did yesterday. That may just be the weather--or maybe I twisted it while I was sleeping. I don't know. But the not knowing what is going on is really aggravating me.

Peace,

Harry

[mfh]

I surely understand your frustration. Those X-rays should have read and reported on the same day they were taken. These things bug me and I would be calling at least twice a day until you get an answer. Whenever you hear, I hope it is good news.

[kayc]

There is NO EXCUSE for them to not call you and tell you the results! Grrr! They should count their lucky stars I am not there, they wouldn't want to deal with me! I hope you call them this morning, and again before lunch, and right after, and at the end of the day...those are their "down times" when you have the best chance of getting a response from them (I used to work for a medical facility). No excuse whatsoever.

Are you getting cool weather in the night/early morning, Harry? That could account for it acting up. Are you on anti-inflammatory medication, Harry?

[HAP]

Dear friends,

The x-ray shows some swelling in the joint, but no significant deterioration nor any sign of a serious mcl issue. A touch of arthritis is there--but I've had that since I was 20. Why it is swollen is not clear but they suggest continued rest through the weekend may clear everything up. If not, they'll have an orthopedist take a look next week.

I can't tell you what a relief that news is. It looks like I'll be able to walk September 21. I just have to decide on the distance. My preference--of course--is to do the entire route, but I won't decide that before the weekend is over. I'm going to be a bit undertrained for the distance and may decide to shorten things up. We'll see how things go.

Thank the Gods for small favors.

Peace,

Harry