Learning To Stand

A stroke disconnects the pathway between thought an action. It cuts off the everyday, every moment things we never think of, cutting off the pathway to muscles that do their job without conscious thought. New pathways need to be learned. Consequently, I’m learning how to stand

When the full effect of the stroke took hold, my brain still told the muscles in my right knee how to hold me up, what pressures to exert in the complex mechanism of sinew and bone enabling it to bare my weight. My knee did not get the message. On the third morning of my hospitalization, I got up to go to the bathroom, took a step, transferring weight to a leg that no longer new how to stand.

With my job I have learned over the years how to fall, twisting through the air, riding falling ladders to the ground in ways that would make Michael Jordan, going up for a basket, proud. I managed to fall into the chair besides my bed with a minor scrape on my back. It earned me a color-coded bracelet meaning I was a fall risk. I did not get out of my bed with out help or supervision for the next three weeks. Wherever I went, it was in a wheelchair.

I learned to transfer my self from chair to bed, locking my chair, weak side close to the bed, sliding out on to the edge of the chair to get my center of gravity, pushing up with my arms, pivoting to the bed on my good leg, lowering my self down.
Even now, almost four months later, if I forget to pay attention and try and stand without thinking, I feel my instability, I hesitate, freeze in a moment in fear, abandon my attempt to stand, and I fall back in my chair.

It’s a nice metaphor for life, don’t you think?

All the things I fear making me hesitate or not even begin the attempt, feeling my instability, my lack of confidence, having learned over the years, through trial and error how to fail without too much damage.

There is something in learning to stand akin to the American Indian who went into the battle and staked himself to the ground, a powerful message to his adversaries this was where he was making his stand, was prepared to die for what he believed. Yet it also acknowledged hisfear, acceptance of his fallen nature, the human propensity to cave at the critical moment.

Life is a constant invitation to stake oneself to the ground, committing not be moved, to live in integrity, to be married faithfully, to love my wife and treat her with respect, to walk humbly with my God.

I still run from so many things, so many commitments I have not yet made, so many ways I am still learning how to stand.