When I’m limited in what I can do, as I am now, I find my thoughts wandering through ghost towns of the past, digging thru conversations, wounds, friendships, feelings, adventures.

A week ago I fell walking our dog, who suddenly yanked me toward a squirrel. As I floated momentarily in what felt like slow motion, I wondered if I would break a hip. I did, crashing into a neighbor’s driveway.

The scream I released took me back to a primal one of eleven months ago, when a bat circled my head. Bats don’t really scare me, but that was the night I learned I had a fractured pelvis, caused by spreading cancer.

Last Saturday, my neighbors heard my cry. They quickly and compassionately helped, lifting me from the ground, and transporting me to IRMC’s ER.

“Your chariot is waiting!” I’ve heard that phrase twice in the last month.

The first time was on our anniversary, a day of golden memories; the second was at the IRMC Emergency Room, when a nurse announced Citizen’s Ambulance arrived to take me to Pittsburgh. I underwent surgery the next morning at Shadyside Hospital, performed by an orthopedic doctor who specializes in treating cancer patients.

Another memory wrapped itself around the fractured ball of my hip joint. I first learned the terror of this kind of break when Mom Woodard broke hers, falling out bed.

“Painful” was a pale, worn out adjective in contrast to what she endured. The tremors of electric-like jabs moving up and down my right leg and hip mirrored the gray, drawn look on Jim’s Mom’s face as she clutched her bed rails.

Following my mastectomy in 2016, our daughter Julie anointed me with lavender oil; while I went thru a tunnel of pain this time, our daughter Tara applied ointment to my lips. Although they may not have thought of it this way, they were performing an ancient ritual of the church, their touch and fragrant oil combining to sooth their mama.

I’m home now, learning how to maneuver step by step on a reconstructed hip. Did I mention Jim is recovering from a total shoulder replacement, his surgery four days before my fall? At least we know a bit of what the other feels.

Our son in Colorado Spring asked for prayers and provides updates on his rickety folks, via Facebook. Until that fall, I was feeling pretty good about another birthday approaching; now I try to keep my mind from traveling down worried roads in the year, ahead.

Faith pulls me back. God didn’t cause my accident, my own lack of caution did that, but the Spirit is always with me, however far I fall.

How will I remember this misadventure? Piercing pain, blanketed in the tender, hard-working love of people stepping up to help us. The care and kindness of nurses, doctors and everybody who has crossed my path in the last week helps me breathe a bit easier, knowing I don’t have to be in charge. We’re especially grateful Julie was already on her way her via train from Philly, coming to help take care of her dad. Instead, she’s worked double-duty for a week.

Our Kenyan daughter Elizabeth telephoned just now. She said we are covered with many, many prayers. I offer those prayers as a thank offering to the Lord, our Healer.

Before this column—and I—took an unexpected turn, I had considered using this prayer this week, by spiritual director Laura Baber of Equipping Lydia Ministry.

Adapted, it still applies: “May the light of Love flicker in the deepest, darkest parts of our hearts, and of our world. May the breath of God gently blow on that flame and encourage Love to grow.”

My twin sister and I share a birthday, today. Although we’re on difference paths, love binds us today. It also happens to be the Feast of St. Brigid, the Irish patron saint of hospitality. Irish women weave little crosses today in her honor, remembering her practical ways of showing kindness to the least, the last and the lost. She’s my role model.

Love is always the bottom line. It far outlasts crumbling thoughts of pain like wallpaper that fades, when exposed to light.

All will be well.

Texting Thru Recovery/Indiana Gazette

The Life of St. Brigid is a wonderful children’s book. The photo through a rainy bus window is traveling in Scotland toward the Isle of Iona.