Broken and Out for a Year

I was not running. I stepped off a ledge onto a sloped surface and rolled my ankle. It popped. I could feel it swelling (exploding is more like it.)

Marsha get me a brace and crutches and insisted we go to the hospital. Broken. Lots of tissue damage. I suspect some nerve damage which will affect my foot. Way it is.

Be grateful!

I am enormously grateful that my wife has been so wonderful in caring for me. I am also grateful to realize I am more fragile than I am inclined to think. I am not so grateful for the ankle damage.

I do not think that God “gave this to me,” nor do I think that this was “God’s plan.” You hear people say that kind of thing. Those words imply God is in charge of all that transpires – cancers, accidents, wars. Such a God is quite vicious and that view of God does not square with the God of grace about which Jesus teaches.

I see God as the power that speaks to me in these doldrums and asks, in effect, “So what are you going to do now?”

My physical therapist said it would take a year to redevelop my leg. He is one voice. After biking up Mt. Ascutney last summer, a fellow wearing a triathlon shirt asked how long it took. Everyone asks. I told him “I am old and fat, an hour!” He said, “Remember you are in the 1%.” That is another voice. My therapist is not exposed to that world.

In June it is the Whiteface Mountain bike race in New York. August it is the Mt. Washington race. Setbacks can sink us into the doldrums and it is oh so easy to stay there. I have been eating enormous amounts of sweets, anchored in the doldrums. “So what are you going to do now?”

Every day has its setbacks. “So what are you going to do now?” Easy to stay anchored. And it is comfortable. I love ice cream! Gotta move to the other said of comfort.

For some of us that setback can be the set up for the comeback. “So what are you going to do now?” Haunting question.