It’s really quite a dramatic story how my wife broke her wrist last week.
She was out in the savage animal’s natural habitat. In her quest to move from one locale to another, she was surprised by a booby trap the animal dug into the wilderness. She began to tumble into the excavation, and she reached out to valiantly claw her way out of the entrapment. In the process of the escape, she damaged a bone in her wrist.
Perhaps it’s best to simplify what happened.
She was working in our yard. While moving, she stepped into a hole dug by our dog. As she started to fall, she reached out to brace herself. On the way down, she damaged a bone in her wrist.
My poor wife became the brunt of all my puns and jokes. I’ve become her right-hand man, since it’s that side now encumbered in a high-tech-looking cast.
It’s been a lesson in humility for my fiercely independent spouse.
We’ve always been equals. She prides herself in being just as strong as I am, just physically and emotionally. She’s unlikely to ask for help unless it’s a job requiring three people, in which case she might ask for one person’s help.
The first day after getting her cast, I helped her put on her earrings, necklace and watch for the first time in our marriage. That was quite a sacrifice for her to even allow me to help.
For the first time since we’d gotten married, I had to tie her shoes. I had to learn how tightly she likes them tied. She had to accept that I do it differently than she does, using the crossed bunny ears method instead of her method of wrapping the laces in a circle.
When we said “for better or for worse,” I didn’t think it meant this.
It’s good for all of us to realize our limitations, though. It’s good to remind ourselves of our own fragility.
For her, it took a tumble in the dog’s hole to take a deep breath and slow down. It’s OK to ask for help. It’s OK to not be fully capable. It’s important to see what you can do and focus on that, not on what you can’t do.
It’s such a good reminder that when things go wrong, it’s going to be all right… even if you’re limited to your left hand.
David Trinko is managing editor of The Lima News, a division of AIM Media Midwest. Reach him at 567-242-0467, by email at [email protected] or on Twitter @Lima_Trinko.
