FRESH THYME
Fall Risk
By Marcy Lytle
A year ago, I fell in my bedroom, all because my pants were too long and my shoes were flat and pointed. Down I went, in a flash, and I hurt my shoulder. That fall scared me. And for months after that, I only felt secure holding my husband’s hand or arm, while we walked. The fall freaked me out, and I was afraid of falling again.
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Fast forward eight months, and Jon landed in the hospital. After only one week in the bed, I saw the nurses put a “fall risk” band on his wrist, and I cried. This meant he was getting weaker, not stronger. My strong, healthy husband just a few days prior was now at risk of falling if he tried to get up. How could this be?
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Those two words, “fall risk” haunted me for a long time. I had felt like a fall risk because of my mishap in the bedroom, and needed someone to hold me until my confidence returned.
And my husband was now a fall risk, because his life was waning…and that crushed my heart to the core.
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I feel like at this present time that I’m a “fall risk” every day. I wake up and open the blinds, and see the sun and I smile as I say, “I feel pretty good at this moment,” only to almost faint later at the memories and the pain of my loss. A fall risk. Sometimes my mind wanders to the why’s of what happened and did it even really happen, and I feel as though I’m stuck and cannot move. For if I do, I’m going to fall into a deep depression and never rise again. A fall risk.
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Maybe you can relate to this, because scary things happen to all of us. I realized through all of my pain that grief is happening to everyone in some way or another, and it all hurts. A sweet friend lost her dog of 14 years. Another friend has lost relationship with one of her children. And still others have been hit with losses of all kinds, none any less grievous than another. And suddenly, this loss takes hold of us and we fear we are going to stumble and go down…hard…on the ground.
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After Jon passed, I didn’t know how I was going to manage without his hand to hold and his arm to steady. I seriously kissed his shoulder as I exited the room that awful night we said good-bye. I really just wanted to fall into his arms and exit this world with him. I was a giant fall risk!
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Going home was the worst, lonely nights and mornings, no one to hold me tight. And though I knew God’s arm was even stronger than my husband’s, I didn’t want God’s arm. I wanted Jon’s arm back, to hold me and keep me from falling. It was tangible. God’s arm was just words on a page.
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One morning I was driving to my kids’ house and I observed the bright sun, which seemed especially bright because it had been raining for days. I also saw how green everything had become around me, the trees and the grass, and the beauty of the yellow wildflowers in the grass along the highway. And oh, that highway, built on the ground, that was sustaining me while I drove. I felt “hemmed” in all the way around by the world God had created.
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The next day I saw the movie The Story of Everything. I didn’t know what to expect, except I had read it was a look at the origin of the universe and how science is pointing to a higher intelligence. That whole day I had felt like a “fall risk” with the pain of sorrow running deep and causing me to feel unsteady for sure.
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I left the film feeling wrapped in the beautiful story of creation from the very beginning, with all the intricate details God has in complete control, including the orbits, the balance, the beauty of the world…even with all its pain. I really felt the strong arm of God sitting beside me in the theater as I was reminded of the wonder of it all, and the counsel and dominion of the One who sits with his hand hovered over the world, and over my personal life.
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I need reminders like this daily. This movie and its message won’t sustain me tomorrow. I’ll need his strong arm again, and again, and again. And I’ll see it in the sunrise at first light…and I’m trusting I’ll see it each day in new ways that he reveals to me, detailed and unique and so personal…just for me…and for you.
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No more “fall risk” on my arm, or Jon’s. Jon is in the arms of God. I’m leaning on them, too, as best I can…