When Your Body Fails You.

So, I injured my back this week doing the stupidest of things, reaching for a spoon I had dropped behind my desk. Pretty soon I couldn't stand or move without a nagging pull in my lower back. So I started on the Ibuprofen and graduated to Aleve and now I am wearing this stick-on heating pad that is only slightly less embarrassing than a Depend.

For all the pleasures I have given this body, I should have know it would betray me in the end; they always do. My secret pleasure at being the most healthy in the family is gone ("Hell, I never get sick."). Pride Goeth Before the Fall (or reach as the case may be). This morning, however, my anger at my body for betraying me turned to fear. Like the metaphor of the frog in the pot, you don't realize the water is getting slowly warmer and warmer until you are frog soup. That is, until some little thing like back pain reminds you that every day is a struggle against death. Pretty soon all sorts of bits and pieces will fail until finally the parts that don't work will outnumber the parts that do.

That is not a bad thing to realize, in fact I think it is a good thing. "Clay lies still, but bloods a rover." I ain't dead yet, but I am dying a little every day. We all are, it is just a matter of time. So get up and do what needs to be done, I tell myself. Drink the good wine, not the cheap stuff; Stop and smell the damned flowers once in a while; Keep hitting up the goddess you live with for a little 'afternoon delight' while you can. Here's a poem I wrote:

Next

When I look up the line

there aren't a lot left in front;

GG's gone and Nana too,

And the grandfather whose body I have.

When I look up the line,

I see some faltering

In body and in mind;

Rooms locked and left,

Never to be returned to;

Empty except for a broken

Chair in the corner.

Rooms whose key is lost

And contents are forgotten.

I can look down the line

And be cheered by what I see;

Brilliance and love;

Can imagine babies yet unborn.

But the line is moving, of course

and soon we will be next.