On March 2, 2014, two years ago yesterday, I broke my hip. I was away from home helping my daughter with her new baby at the time. I took a careless step on the stair, tripped, fell, and landed full force on the cement floor at just the right angle to do the damage. Two years ago today I had surgery to fix that hip.
Happily by now I’m well again and hardly feel any different than I did before the break. But on every anniversary since it’s happened I can’t help but remember that fateful day.
Recovery took so much longer than the accident! When we got home, two thirds through March, I walked with a walker, and then a cane. I used a device to help me put on my socks. For weeks I showered in my husband’s walk-in instead of my own tub shower because I couldn’t climb over the side.
For a long time walking was a limping business. I couldn’t think or will myself into a smooth gait, no matter how hard I tried. The simple walking action I had always done with no thought was revealed as complex. I began to ADMIRE the ability to walk smoothly and effortlessly, but even more admire the Creator of this ability.
ADMIRE, Julieanne Harmatz‘s one-little-word is the word we’re discussing today. It means to regard with wonder, pleasure, or approval. Some of its synonyms are wonder at, treasure, value, worship, think highly of, take pleasure in.
If you think of it, everything around us is fodder for admiration. The fact that I can think thoughts and coordinate brain and hand to make them visible; that I can eat yummy food and it gets changed into hair, skin, and blood; that we live on a planet that’s located in vast space at just the right distance from a star, our sun, with the exact conditions needed to sustain life… all these things and more are cause to wonder at, value, admire.
But my admiration doesn’t stand alone. It has an object—God, the Creator who designed, created and sustains these myriad of systems. Psalm 104 is an admirer’s poem, full of praise for the natural world. It might be called the admiration of worship. Here are its opening lines:
Psalm 104
Bless the Lord O my soul!
O Lord my God,
You are very great:
You are clothed with honor and majesty
Who cover Yourself with light as with a garment,
Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain… (read the rest…)
Back down to earth, during my convalescence I wrote some impressions of that time. Here I am, still limping along…
Out of Sight
I never gave the walk-cycle a thought
considered all the moving parts
heel, foot, knee, hip
pretibial, calf, quadriceps, hamstring
bone, muscle, sinew
needed to move in sync like an orchestra
to form the ballet of a step
until I broke one part.
Now I’ve added another part—a cane
have begun doing scales, arpeggios, four-note chords
exercising thighs and knees
to help my body relearn
a smooth, unlimping gait.
The ability to walk
always before
out of sight
but now never
out of mind.
© 2014 by Violet Nesdoly
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This post is linked to Spiritual Journey Thursday, hosted by Holly Mueller at Reading, Teaching, Learning.
Violet Nesdoly 
Thank you for sharing your anniversary insights and remembrances with us. As one does on an anniversary, we celebrate– in this case, we give God thanks and praise for your recovery and the way your vision of the event and its aftermath has turned into an occasion for seeing reasons to admire our God’s Magnificence. I love your “admiration of worship” inclusion of Psalm 104. On this day when we ponder what it means to admire, thank you for giving us many more reasons to admire your gentle mettle–no complaints, just gratitude concerning what had to be a traumatic event, coming as it did on the heels of a grandchild’s birth and the intention to be with your daughter to help! God bless you and the child with whom, I’m sure, you have a very special (unbreakable!) bond!
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Violet, I understand the struggles of recovery but am so glad that you are whole again. Memory of the recovery allowed you to come up with a beautiful poem for us to read and the posting of Psalm 104. In my research I found a song for Psalm 104. Although it is in ancient Hebrew and I don’t understand the words, I read the Psalm as I listened to the musicians and the vocalist. It is a powerful combination. Here are the lines that will stick with me today:
May my meditation be sweet to Him;
I will be glad in the Lord.
Thank you for sharing your backstory and your worship today.
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It is funny how we take things for granted. I have read even each of tiny toes are important in our walking ability. It takes a lot to walk. God’s design is intricate and beautiful. Thinks for the important reminder.
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I fell 6 weeks ago and broke my tailbone. I have taken for granted the simple act of sitting. Now I carry a cushion around with me. I am still taking pain meds. There is nothing to be done but wait and heal. But I still have so much to be grateful for. I will heal. Eventually. Two years from now I’ll remember this time. I am guessing you have a 2 yr. old grandchild running around. Something else to admire.
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It’s so true that we take all our working parts for granted until something goes wrong. I remember when I had bunion surgery – not nearly as severe as a broken hip – but I had a cast on my foot and had to be on crutches for 6 weeks – no weight was allowed on it. I had to take baths instead of showers, one leg hiked over the side of the tub. Awkward. Ugh. No fun. We need to admire our health when we have it and not take it for granted!
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Thanks, Holly! I wouldn’t say that your bunion surgery, or Margaret’s broken tailbone, are “not nearly as severe.” In some ways my hip fracture was less serious than having to take the precautions that you had to take, and didn’t have the excruciating pain of something wrong with one’s sit-upon. I’ve bruised my tailbone and even that was NASTY! After hip surgery they had me up walking and weight-bearing on the evening of surgery. No casts or slings… But whatever we injure, it sure makes us aware of how interactive our parts are. We are “fearfully and wonderfully made.”
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