Circling the Light

Getting Back to the Deep End

Hi, gentle readers. It’s been a while.

As I recover from major surgery on my “good” shoulder, I ask myself how I’ve changed. An April Custom Reverse Total Shoulder Replacement (whew!) took a lot out of me and I have the hardware to prove it.

But I thank God for the talented medical professionals who figured out a way when there wasn’t much of a way due to arthritis and infection. I’m thankful for family and friends who did for me what I could not do for myself.

Yes, somehow I’m getting through it.

Nothing like forced rest and utter helplessness to make a person remember how much loving grace there is in this life. For two months, I was at everyone’s mercy. And no, I didn’t behave at all saintly.

As a polio survivor who lost the use of one arm in early childhood, this surgery/recovery process has helped remind me of how fragile we really are. I laugh about the time I tried to get out of my hospital bed without the use of my hands—I ended up with my head hanging off one side and my feet dangling off the other. Sideways Me had to find humor in between moments of sheer terror.

With my surgery arm wrapped and strapped to my side and my nonworking arm, uh, not working, I felt trapped. When my nose itched, I clung to the edge of panic because I couldn’t scratch. I scolded myself for forgetting to compare myself to quadriplegics and then let loose a string of bad, bad words. At home, I was like a very irritable tigress—I’d bite off the head of anyone who didn’t do my bidding.

Me, age one year.

Part of my frustration comes from the fact that those in my orbit have no idea how it feels to suddenly lose your hands. I thought about asking the surgeon to please have someone handcuff him for an hour, but like my family, no one seemed curious enough to actually experiment with my situation. I can’t blame them.

I sat on my bed for six long weeks, alternating between sobbing prayers and being really mad at God. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t find a balance between entitlement (everybody should have hands!) and comparison (Plenty don’t have working hands, so get off the pity pot). The only thing that has helped is redirecting my attention to other senses, other emotions, other experiences.

It sounds really corny, but when you lose something you took for granted, you can tune into God in a thousand different ways. Every sense became heightened—I swore I could smell roses from across the room. I prayed more for others, even as my own pleas were banging on the door. I experienced darkness.

But the only way I knew it was dark was that the light came through.

Light could not be stopped by my petty griping, by too much introspection or even by my self-centeredness. Father Richard Rohr likes to point out how we move toward the light as we deal with our shadows. I still shrink back from most of mine—especially the ones that say I am damaged goods, a cripple trying to pass, or as an ex once said, “a one-armed girl who swims in a circle.”

You likely have your own version of this, and it always makes you cringe. Whether it’s about your body or your social life or something else, the shadow follows you. If you try to run, it runs faster, and will be waiting for you at your next stop.

That’s why I’m feebly grasping at a different approach, one that greets my flaws and sins and tries really hard not to blush in deep embarrassment. For light to overtake the darkness, I find it necessary to walk purposefully through my life. There is no way around or under or over. There is only through.

In my daydreams I clap as well as anyone, lift my arms to heaven. Type with both hands! Swim in a straight line!

But when I wake, God leads me beside still waters of love. Because love understands how much we hurt, how often we cry out for relief. I’m edging toward the light, knowing that’s where I’ll find peace with all my irregularities. And if I ask politely, I like to think God would handcuff himself to me—not to see what it’s like to be a one-handed circle-swimmer, but so I won’t get lost again.