We had a brief visit with Bill’s brother Tom on Thursday night. He lives in Fairfax, VA., and we had a few appointments in D.C. So we finally got to see his new place.
We arrived late from a concert; he arrived late from a Nationals game. But he graciously gave us a tour of his three-story townhome anyway. On the second floor, I opened the door to the deck.
“I know you don’t like decks,” he said, as I slid the door open. We walked out onto the deck and into the warm Virginia night air.
“I’m not bothered by them at all, really,” I told him, and walked across the width to the railing.
A lot of people expect me to be bothered by decks. More often than I can count, people have suggested that standing on a deck might make me nervous. I am always grateful for that solicitude, and always, at first, a bit surprised. Because decks don’t bother me At All.
I know their concern arises from the accident we were involved in over a year ago: at our next-door neighbor’s home for their annual and lovely Easter party (which included two Easter egg hunts and over 300 filled and hidden eggs), the deck overlooking their backyard collapsed, sending sixteen of us on an instantaneous plummet to the ground below. There were many injuries, many of them serious. I suffered a broken foot and a severe concussion.
Everyone, praise God, has recovered.
Despite this horrific event, I have no fear of another deck collapsing beneath me. Bill and I laugh about it: what are the chances? Aren’t we deck-proof now? Does lightning strike in the same place twice?
No, I think it’s grace. I’m not unafraid because I needn’t be afraid (reason only goes So Far); I’m unafraid because, from the outset– even as the deck collapsed– I have been granted immeasurable and deep peace about the entire thing.
But there are a few things left me from the accident that disturb my psyche on a more subconscious level. It’s taken me a while to recognize and identify them, but I think I see them now, and it helps to know.
The first is any sudden deep scraping sound. A chair sliding across the floor makes my muscles seize and my body go rigid. Then I realize what it is and I can relax again. And I remember– again– the noise that the deck made when it first began to let go of the house.
The second is a new fear of children falling. I didn’t realize that this was new, but my friend Rachel tells me it is. I used to be much more relaxed watching children in their childish gymnastics. Now I am terrified at the potential of a child losing his balance and going over a railing or the back of a chair or, well, anything Jack climbs, which is basically Everything.
Happily, neither of these are constant or even frequent occurences. Happily, I am able to discern a real cause of panic from my trauma-induced paranoia. And– who knows?– maybe these, too, with time, shall pass.
I did recently shake something leftover from the accident and, as with the others, I didn’t recognize the change for a long time. But after weeks of crutches, during which I was not allowed to put Any Weight Whatsoever on my broken foot; after weeks of weight-bearing, but only in a nasty orthopedic shoe; after months of tenderness, achiness, and generally treating my foot with Great Care, I had dropped some formerly habitual behaviors. And although I’ve been normal for a long time now, it only recently struck me as something I wasn’t doing anymore, and I set out immediately to correct it, glad for the strength, and the Whole Bones, to do it: I’ve returned to climbing the stairs two at a time.
