The Boy at Rehab and…

He smiled at me, the boy with the braces on his legs – college age sitting in the back of the neuro rehab waiting room working on his laptop. Smiled as he shouldered his cane and shuffled with it over one shoulder as the physical therapist called him back. That cane over his shoulder the banner declaring he is getting better.

I admired his braces – once I get started here the doctors have said they will fit me for one. That will hopefully make the pain less, the mobility more. It is strange where we find ourselves in life, coveting a leg brace.

I have been sent here after a myriad of PT appointments where I hear they cannot help me. I do not know why I wasn’t sent here first except for the fact that one of the doctors tells me they are all just fiddling, trying to fix these amazing creations God built.

That boy’s smile says he sees me, knows something really shitty has happened to each of us and we don’t need to talk about it, don’t need the thousand questions all the healthy people ask us. That smile says we are trying to get better, it tells me I can come here to the hospital three times a week, I can sit next to older woman yelling at her husband’s insurance company, I can sit here amidst all the people hurting and limping and rolling, wondering what will happen next. I can in fact – not give up.

I thank him for all that with a simple smile in return, and it is enough.

. . .

A few days later I brave Trader Joes for the first time in two months, the first time in what feels like an eternity, the first time since all this happened, the first time in a wheelchair. I bring my seven year old with me to push the cart; neither of us can reach the higher shelves.

Each time I do something old in this new way, each time I go somewhere for the “first” time I sit in my car trying to quell the panic, trying to breathe deeply and then I steel myself and go in. Today I do not think I can do this, the reasons why are too numerous to say.

But as I enter the produce aisle, contemplating turning and “running,” the employee who I have seen in there a hundred times, who doesn’t have his leg below the knee, who I don’t know but who has seen me picking over apples and berries enough times to know that this wheelchair is not something I know well… He makes a point to say good morning and his eyes tell me that I don’t have to be afraid – that I can do this. His smile says he understands, and I gratefully return his greeting and do my grocery shopping.

It feels better than I had expected to return home with a van full of groceries.

. . .

“Moments of true compassion will remain engraved on our hearts as long as we live. Often these are moments without words: moments of deep silence… safe silence… these moments of compassion continue to bear fruit.”

• Henri J.M. Nouwen