A crash course for the soul

October 5, 2014

From the practical to the spiritual and from the mundane to the profound, there are several lessons to learn from six weeks in cast

A crash course for the soul

I had just celebrated my fifty-first birthday and was feeling rather smug at having successfully evaded not only the ‘fat female of forty’ epithet but at having gone on to cross the ‘flabbier female at fifty’ milestone as well, in such apparently good shape.

So, there I was, youthfully skipping down a flight of stairs, balancing a plateful of delicacies in each hand, when on the very last step, my foot twisted. I found myself on the floor, but looked triumphantly at both plates still safely aloft in my hands.

That was the split second before I felt the blinding pain and the cracking sound, which was not coming from the plates.

To cut a long story short, a bone in my foot had fractured and I was sentenced to six weeks in a cast with instructions to lose the smug attitude and get my act together.

Old habits die hard, however, and I began my six weeks with arrogant disdain. All sorts of ‘lame’ jokes flitted through my head while I considered witty statuses for my facebook update. How much could a little broken bone restrict me after all, I thought? I was irritated by solicitous offers of help and over-anxious family members who hovered around me, lunging to provide support when I so much as moved a finger. "Oh please, I can manage", I said.

That phase lasted all of two hours. Probably less.

Panic set in quickly. The cast gained weight and seemed to get tighter. I felt I couldn’t breathe. I demanded a knife or scissors to cut myself free. I requested that my phone be brought to me so I could beg the doctor to think of an alternative treatment strategy. Surely, in this modern age, they did not have to resort to such primitive methods to immobilise a measly joint.

But hitherto solicitous family members had transformed into cold hearted villains. One hid all sharp objects within my reach, another took my phone away and the youngest sadistically danced off with my newly-acquired crutches so that I was left stranded, desperate and friendless. I think I must have cut a sorry figure because my son, (I’d always known he was the one with the soft heart), ventured back within throwing distance and tried consoling me.

"The tightness is only temporary Ma," he said. "I promise it’ll get better in just a little while. You’re lucky it’s not itching". 

 I think of my mother, of other old, sick people I have known. I realise that when they said no to my offers of help, they were only putting my comfort and convenience over their own. 

There was a small pause while my eyes widened and my heart sank. Proving that mind games are potentially the most powerful weapons known to mankind, the innocuously planted idea took root in my head and grew rapidly into a monstrous tree. A dreadful itch started that very instant and continues to this day when I’m nearing the end of my six week sentence. All sorts of ingenious instruments have been devised and experimented with in the intervening weeks to get at those impossibly inaccessible points, driving me, and everyone else insane, but to no avail.

Meanwhile, my daughter has decided to ditch medicine as a prospective career and pursue mechanical engineering, as she feels this could be a better way to help ailing humanity while I am sincerely urging my son to stay away from a career in counselling.

But, besides the itch and the power of an idea, what else have I learnt from this experience? Several life lessons: from the practical to the spiritual and from the mundane to the profound. Though sermons never make for good advice and my experience is uniquely mine, yet I venture to share my lessons with you in the vague hope that my words may touch someone.

The first lesson is the obvious one and it comes direct from the finest in the bones business. Respect for our bodies. Especially if you are a woman, drink milk, exercise and get exposure to the sun. "Kala ho ga Pakistan to healthy ho ga Pakistan" -- the slogan being my lame addition!

Osteoporosis, or the weakening of bones, starts insidiously, leaving us with a hollow skeleton and making us increasingly susceptible to fractures and breaks. If we are to take good care of our families, it makes sense to take care of ourselves first.

Respect for the disabled. I have a new found respect for people with disabilities. Every single act of every day life requires extra effort if any part of one’s body is malfunctioning, but these people, and they are rightly called special, display tremendous courage to live seemingly normal lives.

Six weeks on crutches has taught me how difficult it is to navigate steps, to wash dishes or cook, to take a bath or make a bed. It has taught me that when you walk on crutches, your wrists hurt and your shoulders ache and your good foot feels sore.

Also read: Thoughts from a sick bed

Frida Kahlo, a famous artist, after being seriously injured in a bus accident said "Feet? What do I need them for, when I have wings to fly?"

One can only marvel at such brave and inspirational people, who turn challenges on their heads and discover inner strengths within themselves. I, with my temporary disability, my irritability and impatience, my self-pity and helplessness, can just feel immensely humbled.

Gratitude. Not until one is faced with adversity does one realise or appreciate one’s blessings. A loving family, caring friends, neighbours and people you hardly know, suddenly appear to help you through your trying time. You are showered with love and care, good wishes and prayers, and you feel that you are the luckiest, most loved person in the world.

No one is indispensable.I had thought that if I am not functioning, the world will fall apart. My household and family will fall apart. They did falter momentarily. But then as if by magic, my responsibilities were divided and taken over. Things were not just so… but I realised that they didn’t have to be my perfect to be…. well, perfect. People adapted. Life continued. A part of me was a bit hurt, but another was indescribably proud.

But the most profound lesson I learnt was that of humility and acceptance. To be able to receive help and kindness with grace is not easy. It can feel humiliating and degrading and the instinctive reaction is to either not ask, to reject help when it is offered, or the worst, to accept it ungraciously with a feeling of getting indebted.

I learnt that even with people closest to you like your family, it is hard to ask. I was used to being on my feet, being self-sufficient, serving other people’s needs, but suddenly I was depending on others for even little things.

 If you consider yourself as one who takes pleasure in doing things for people, stop for a second and consider your motives, your actions and your attitude.

Consider the simple situation where I want to work on my laptop. I ask someone to bring me the laptop, the person has just sat down when I remember I need my glasses too, and my notes in the white register in the messy pile on my table in my room. Then I discover the battery is dying and I need my charger which will now need an extension wire because I can’t move. My child runs and does it all with a smile, yet I feel embarrassed each time, I apologise each time, I feel like a nuisance each time.

After a week of this dancing attendance I grow tired of myself. Not that the attitude of the others has changed, but I project my own feelings on to those around me and start to feel like a burden on them.

I try organising and limiting my needs. I ask for water only when someone is in the kitchen. I curb the urge to fix the flowers in the vase or do something with the food I know is getting wasted in the fridge. I sit and watch tv. My people keep asking if I need anything and churlishly I feel they should read my mind and guess. I’m embarrassed when they do and sulk quietly when they don’t. My friends send me trays of food and I attempt lying and saying we are managing fine. My ego resists help. Thankfully they ignore me and send them anyway.

But these thoughts depress me. Not so much for myself, because I know my situation is temporary, but more because I think of my mother, of other old, sick people I have known. I realise that when they said no to my offers of help, they were only putting my comfort and convenience over their own. They too must have hoped I would see into their hearts. They had come to terms with their limitations and were cultivating patience and a passive resignation to a changed reality. And they were fighting valiantly to keep their dignity and independence.

The thought saddened me immeasurably. I felt ashamed because so many times I had taken their refusals at face value, because so often I had failed to recognise their unspoken needs.

I then learnt a new truth. That giving and serving others is a divine quality. If you consider yourself a giver, as I did, one who takes pleasure in doing things for people, stop for a second and consider your motives, your actions and your attitude. I guess I liked giving because it made me feel good about myself, but that meant that in reality my motivation was selfish.

Now I have learnt that giving graciously is as hard as receiving graciously, perhaps even more so, because you are required to have infinite amounts of sensitivity, perceptiveness, patience and selflessness. You have to be able to give without the other having to ask. You have to learn to give without being condescending. You need to show empathy not sympathy. You have to make the receiver feel not that you are doing a favour, but that by having your help accepted, you are being done a favour; that indeed, the honour is not in giving, but in being accepted.

At times you have to make the fine distinction between your own opinion of what is needed and what that person wants. You have to give with joy and laughter. You have to convey that if at all this is a debt, it is a debt of love, one you expect, nay even demand, to receive back with dividends. That is the sort of giver one should aspire to be. I found such givers, whose biggest gift to me was that I felt it was alright to ask for and accept their help. I am blessed and have many debts of love to repay.

What I’m convinced of above all, however, is that this six week crash course was about more than my broken foot.

A crash course for the soul