Hauntings

Mile Marker 143:

In bed this morning, I listened to the icy rain tap against the windows. 

My eyes were closed.  And in my head, I imagined I was walking down a long hallway.  Pacing myself as always.   Plodding along slowly, step by step.  Leaving the daylight behind.

I’ve been taught to stay away from dark places where I might lose my footing.   But I couldn't stop moving forward, even as the hallway dimmed and the wind picked up.  The floor and ceiling and walls seemed to come together.  And I could make out a small door up ahead. 

I felt like Alice in Wonderland, but not exactly.  She had a choice.

The door at the end of my hall would open by itself.  

Behind it, I knew, lurked NOVEMBER.

Anyone seen a cement guy?

This week I hurried from place to place, racking up miles without even noticing.  I focused on exercising at PT, helping out at school, carrying groceries from the car, unpacking from Chicago, and doing laundry in the basement.  Oh, and also tracking down that guy who’s supposed to be repairing my sidewalk!

Can I offer you some Eyeball Punch?

I clocked Mile Marker 143 last night volunteering at the rehab hospital Halloween party.  We showed horror movies, ate pizza, and gave out candy.  It was my first shift as a volunteer and a good way to celebrate the holiday this year.  It reminded me of how far I’ve come from that limbo world last winter.  Of all that time I spent getting ready to rejoin the land of the living.

It’s been a long year.

I’d like to forget that time is still passing.  That every minute tumbles us through the end of October.  Toward the first anniversary of my accident.

Last year's B.Y.O.P.
Fun times!

It’s an unusual feeling.  I'm used to looking FORWARD, especially at this time of year.  Halloween has always been MY holiday – carving pumpkins with friends, serving up pumpkin pasta, lighting the fire pit, and breathing in the fresh chill of fall.  But this week it reminds me of the decorations from last year’s party.  The ones that were left unkempt on November 9.  The cardboard pumpkins and orange candles that collected dust around my house until Mom and I finally tucked them into the basement last May.

I’m just not ready to open that box again.

This time of year marks the end of BEFORE.  And the beginning of all that came AFTER.

I guess I'm a little afraid of what's still to come.

I'm scared of the mystery that winter holds for me and my new body.  Shoveling, salting, stepping through snow.  And other obstacles I've yet to imagine.

And I fear that each day this season will remind me of another day LAST YEAR.

In the hospital on the wall across from my bed, there was a white board.  The nurses erased it each morning and neatly changed the date.  I can tell you the date of each of my surgeries.  I can tell you about Thanksgiving night -- when I nibbled on my strange-tasting turkey dinner before Mom, Dad, and Mark reluctantly headed to the Midtown Diner.  I can tell you about December first when the hospital staff hung jingle bells on everyone’s door.   And about how frightened I was on December 17, when my grandmother was so sick I thought I said my last goodbye to her on the phone from my hospital bed.  And later that same day, when Mark took my hand and held on tight in the ambulance to the rehab hospital.

But here we are now.  All of us.  (Yes, even my grandmother!)  So I need to make some NEW memories.  To cover up those old ones - respectfully and gently -- and move on.

I’m determined to FIND JOY this season, even in the midst of cold winds and gray skies and snowy sidewalks.  It’s hard though.  Sometimes even the most colorful ideas fade in the early evening light. 

Matt salts my messy sidewalk!

For now I'll smile at those little joys I've come across over the past few miles --  The airport wheelchair escort last weekend, who admitted to me that he’d never flown on a plane.   The five-year-old "Captain America" who was the life of the rehab Halloween party.   And, of course, my friends who held up traffic today to help me cross the slippery street!

Mile 143 paves the way to darker times.   But it has to.  That’s when trick-or-treaters come out.

Maybe I've been watching too many horror movies.  

Still, I'll be surprised if the sun rises when we open that door to November.  But if -- or when -- it does, it’ll make things a little bit easier.

The calendar pages will keep on turning.  And before I know it, it’ll be spring.

Perhaps this season is just A BUMP IN THE ROAD.

Sound familiar?