The technician came out holding my new leg cover. A pretty champagne color, lovely etchings to boot. I exclaimed an ooooh...she replied the same. We have shared many appointments, fittings and measurements, me learning to walk and on and on.
Somber, serious moments.
Finally some fun!
Ally snapped on the new cover, and I held out my leg to admire it. Yes, I happily thought, I am going to rock some amputee fashion, yup. That's the plan. A new cane, perhaps new socks. Looking at my new sneaker shoes, I remembered the Old Julie....the one who adored fancy, pretty shoes.
I am coming back...a sweet voice came.
Then another voice...
...how long did it take you to walk again?
I looked up to see an older man sitting in a wheelchair. He repeated his question, telling me he hadn't even known I had an amputation when I walked into the therapy room. Listening to his story, a leg infection and then surgery, my mind wondered at his hard life. His aloneness in it. And how these things happen to us, they just do. He had slipped into a sad story, and now he was struggling to walk again.
I try to wear my prosthetic leg six hours a day....but it hurts and it's hard and well, I don't know...his voice trailed off, discouraged and determined in the same lump.
So I counted on my fingers the months it took me to walk after surgery, triumphantly ending with...you can do it too. Keep trying, don't stop. My perkiness wanting badly to will him to stay in his arena. Two legless warriors, together in heart and purpose, defeat be damned.
The clinician returned, but his question stayed with me. Because time has been one of the trickiest, enduring parts of my health misadventure. Slowing to a grind, then revving up again. Like an old VCR on fast forward or rewind, voices an unintelligible warble. As I replay dear old days when my body was whole, or imagine days ahead with a big question mark.
So I sought out this man again, cheering him that our walking business takes us as long as it takes us. Anything in life does, not just amputation recovery. Well-intentioned advice givers might tell us to let something hard go. Leave it in the past, whatever "it" is. Forget it, dump it. So we nod our heads, because we want badly for our something to be over. To shed any residue of a harsh experience; for the experience to be done with us.
But after dark, our hearts wander...
...how long will (something) take?
How long will it take to not feel sad anymore? To feel like myself again? To not miss and to want and to desire some old part of ourselves back? To learn to walk again? How long, how long, oh how long?
And a whisper comes...
...it will take as long as it takes, my lovely one.
And in the meantime, we practice radical acceptance, not of the problem or issue or obstacle...but of our journey. Trusting in some divine and gorgeous Source or God or angels, archangels and all the company of heaven...that whisper to us all will be well, all shall be well, all shall be most well. So we smile at the well-wishers and we buy fun sneakers. We stay open to possibilities, without the need to predict. We resist the urge to rush our holy something, but we never overstay in sadness hardened to a trophy.
As I left the clinic, I turned to this kind man, the one who had made me feel so good about my walking....gave him a wink and a nod. And I remembered that one year ago, only a year ago, it was hard and scary to drive to an appointment by myself. Now I easily get in my left-footed car and head down that road, and it had all happened step by step by step. Pride swelled in my heart, pushing out some of the hard stuff, leaving less room for it, until another day anyway.
It will take as long as it takes, yes, it will take us as long as it takes us.
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