No, Not At Eighteen

Took a fall last Friday that left me on crutches. Thought I might have broken loose one of the bones that was fused in my leg and ankle. Doctor’s xray showed nothing broken, just a torn ligament. Which, of course, takes longer to heal than a broken bone. As if that wasn’t bad enough, coming down the stairs from our front door into the tiled sunroom I took flight. Crutches don’t make good wings.

Actually the flight wasn’t that bad, although it was less in distance and time than the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk. It’s the landings I keep having trouble with - can’t seem to get my wheels down in time to prevent a crash. Head first on the tile floor, not a very forgiving surface, even for a hard-headed male Paul. When I came to, I had a bump and cut on my head, four jammed fingers on my right hand, a sore shoulder, sore knee and a slight concussion, plus more damage to my ankle. Wow, all that in less than 3 seconds. And no, I hadn’t been drinking, unless decaf coffee counts.

How’s the old Zen saying go? "Pay attention, damn it." That might not be exact.

I hope that another old saying doesn’t have application in this instance: "everything comes in threes." Unless, of course, I consider what the doctors at the Foot and Ankle Institute in Seattle said today counts as the third one. They told me that I have to wait a year after removal of the hardware from my leg/ankle, before they will consider giving me a ankle prosthesis. That means it will be some time in October before I can get that surgery done. I had been hoping for this spring so I could be healed and on a mountain by this summer. No such luck. Guess I’ll just have to hobble my skinny butt up there a little slower than I would prefer. More time to pay attention.

Hells bells, I may still be on crutches by our 50^th high school class’s reunion this summer. Fifty years! Oh well, at least I’ll have made it, knock on wood, and no more tile floors. Some of our class mates haven’t, and that is always sad. When you are eighteen your whole life is in front of you. You don’t think about getting old, and the body that has supported you for those eighteen years, and is at its peak, will someday fail you. Just let me get out on my own, the party is just beginning. Look out world here I come. College, graduate school, marriage, job, children, divorce, marriage, job, children, grandchildren, retirement. None of that was high on our radar screens at eighteen. Little did some of us know that the military was also right around the corner. For some that meant Vietnam, and death, for others it meant a life of living hell. I wrote a poem at the beginning of the Iraq war that’s appropriate for all wars: Wars a whore that fucks your mind, that steal your soul and leaves you blind, to the terrors you have seen, and horrors worse than any dream.

At eighteen those aren’t even a possibility. Getting laid, getting drunk, now that’s a different story. Not suicide, addictions, death of friends and love ones, death of children and grandchildren, failed relationships, not at eighteen. In the immortal words of Forrest Gump; "Shit happens." But that is only part of the story, actually a small part.

Little did we know or understand the satisfaction that a long time marriage could bring, a year going steady in high school was a loooong time. The joy of seeing your children and grandchildren being born, their first teeth, first steps, and all the other first they would bring. The simple daily things that we all too often take for granted: rainbows, butterflies, the pungent aroma of the morning coffee, delicious sunrises and sunsets, a smile a tear and oh so many more, little things. The little things that fill the spaces between everything else. That bring coherence, that tie together the days, week, months and years of a lifetime. Not at eighteen could I have predicted all the joys and sorrow that make life full to the brim and overflowing. No, not at eighteen.