If there is any blessing that is all-too-easy to take for granted, it is the state of Painlessness. . . especially when you’re young and feeling pretty invulnerable. But when you pass your 50th birthday, like I have, and carry around more weight than you should, like I do, aches and pains become fairly familiar companions. Still, I am so fortunate that the pain I experience in my life tends to be pretty minor and relatively fleeting…. nothing like what some people face on a daily basis, like a friend of mine – an incredibly dear person – just diagnosed with a serious form of arthritis. I know this person will meet this challenge with grace and courage and humor (already has, in fact) that will be a great inspiration to colleagues, friends and family alike.
Over the last ten days, I have had three people important to me be banged up and bruised in one way or another, which has made me still more appreciative of Painlessness as the great blessing which it is. The week before last, my younger brother Nathan fell and broke his wrist. As a piano player, that is one of my most persistent and troubling nightmares: that someday, being the klutz that I am, I will take a tumble and break my wrist and find myself suddenly out of commission, pianistically – and in all kinds of other ways as well. Nathan seems to be dealing with it as best he can, although those really cold and snowy days were not fun because he couldn’t fit a glove or mitten over his cast. It’s funny the things you don’t think about until unforeseen events complicate them terribly. . . like how wonderful gloves are on a cold winter day.
Then a couple of days ago came shocking news about my cousin Kristian (pronounced Kris-John,) one of the so- called Northern Bergs. He and I shared many loves as youngsters, including drawing our own comic books – and I have admired Kris for his fine work as a documentarian. (He worked for years on the wonderful PBS series Newton’s Apple and now teaches at Penn State.) Saturday night, my brother Steve called with the news that Kris was very seriously injured in an accident up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula after falling twelve feet off of a ladder in a friend’s shack out in the middle of nowhere. According to my cousin Sigri, Kristian’s friend had to drive his snow mobile who knows how far to get cell phone service, at which point he called for an EMS, met them, and then guided them back to where Kris was. What a nightmare! The injuries read like an Anatomy Class quiz….including 11 of his 12 ribs on the right side broken. I won’t go on- I’m in pain just thinking about it! But as bad as it was, it could have been worse, and all of us who love Kris feel so badly that this happened but feel so grateful that he’s still with us, if not quite in one piece. (yet)
But what brought all of this pain business right to my doorstep was yesterday (Sunday) morning, when my wife threw out her back. And it wasn’t from rough-housing with the dogs or carrying plywood or falling down the stairs. She threw out her back just from turning on the shower. Sounds strange, but Kathy has had a bone spur in her lower back ever since a scary mishap back during high school or college (I forget which) when she fell down a flight of stairs. She survived and fully recovered except for the bone spur, which every so often will rear up and make her life a living hell if she just happens to move just right/wrong. The last time was while we were packing to move to our current home, which means it was 12 years ago- so I guess we were overdue for the latest installment in Revenge Of The Spur.
The saga began when I heard the words “Help me, dear! Help me!” emanating from the bathroom – which was so strange because there had been nothing that sounded like a fall – or the spewing of water from a burst pipe – or anything similarly dramatic. There was just that plaintive cry for help, and when I burst in, there she was – standing by the shower curtain, sort of caved in on one side, with her face scrunched up in agony. I got her back into bed, fetched the ice pack from the freezer, loaded her up with Advil, and was out the door because choir was singing at first service. (As Kathy so wittily phrased it in a Facebook post, “Fell back instead of spring forward.”) Never have I so regretted walking out the door as I did at that moment- even though she was safely in bed and there was nothing more for me to do at that point. But it’s no fun to be alone with our pain and there is at least the littlest comfort in knowing that someone is there with us, as close to feeling our own pain as much as another person possibly can. In fact, I think one of the best moments in all this came late in the afternoon when our friend Steve Smith stopped by with a couple of samples of something called Bio Freeze which both he and Jeri have used for various ailments – and it provided the best and most immediate relief Kathy’s had yet. But I think almost better than the Bio Freeze gel itself was just the fact that a friend would be concerned enough to make a special trip to our house just to drop this off. And as unpleasant as it is to be hurt or ill or both, that’s when we come to realize just how much people love us and care about us.
There is also something beautiful and amazing about how human beings so often manage to work themselves through their pain and emerge the other side of it – stronger, refined, and sometimes even transformed. The stories are limitless, and sometimes we don’t even know the story as such beyond one single glimpse. Yesterday afternoon I did escape the house long enough to take the dogs down to Petrifying Springs to run in the dog park. And there amidst the many frolicking dogs was a beautiful, gentle dog that was getting around on three legs. And unless you stopped to count its limbs, you would never guess that there was anything the least bit wrong. It bounded around just as quickly, just as joyously, just as fearlessly as any of its four-legged counterparts. For all that there was to watch (as there always is at the dog park) I could scarcely take my eyes off of this beautiful, inspiring dog the whole time I was there. I have no idea what happened to this dog, and most likely never will. But I do know that this dog is not allowing the loss of a leg to slow him down the least bit.
Pain is no fun. But rising above and beyond it has to be the best feeling in the world. I wish rapid yet thorough healing to Nathan and to Kristian and to my wife, and to anyone and everyone else in my life who is living through pain.
pictured above: the inspiring three-legged dog I saw at the dog park. (I appreciate Kate Barrow, who was there at the same time, pointing him out to me. As I said, I might very easily have missed out on even noticing.