The Joints Go First

Replacing Old Parts With New Ones

Tomorrow I’m having a full knee replacement surgery. Yesterday I had a melt down. It started with an anger in my belly that rose into my throat. I’d like to to tell you that it was attached to something -- that a slight or a betrayal had caused the fire to burn so hot. But the anger wasn’t attached to anything at all. No event. No person. No place.

The day wore on and so did my nerves. Anxiety is what drove me home from my errands. The turn signal in my car ticked away the seconds while I waited for the green arrow to appear so I could make my left. The sound was annoying. I pounded the steering wheel with my fist “just turn green, damn it.” The sound of my voice broke the spell and I started to cry. Behind all the angry feeling tension was a scared little girl who had never been through such a big surgery; who didn’t know what to expect, even though she was trying to talk a good game. Ten minutes later, when I walked through the kitchen door, my husband must have seen the struggle written on my face, and he opened his arms and just hung on to me, the two of us swaying to the sound of our breathing. “I’ve had a rough day,” I said.

He kissed me on the forehead. “I’m going to run you’re a bath and bring you a mineral water.”

“With ice and a straw?” I asked.

“With ice and a straw,” he said.

A caring husband, a warm bath and good cry, quelled and calmed my previous state. It’s okay, to have a melt down, I tell myself. Okay to be scared. Okay to let the tears wash away the tension and fear. There is no perfect way to do this. No perfect attitude. No perfect recovery plan. You can be a complete mess if you want to.

I declared the day “done,” put on my pajamas, and realized that the universe is taking care of me. A nurse called just after dinner and told me about my physical therapy appointments which begin the day after surgery. She gave me lots of information about what to expect and asked me to hang on to her number and to call at any time if I had questions. Her manner was kind and knowledgeable. She talked to me with the assurance of a woman who’d ushered hundreds of people through this process.

The best of what I see in my fellow humans is the desire to help. I have that desire too. I want to walk the world with a kind and grateful heart. That being said, I’m not the best receiver. I get overly invested in being strong and independent. But right now, the universe is opening my eyes to guides and helpers everywhere and all I can do is bow my head and take in the tenderness of that human desire to being helpful.

Life happens to us and because of us, and often it happens in spite of us. This I know to be true: Big life events are thresholds. We enter new places and new ways of being. We’re presented with opportunities to expand, evolve, and grow. How will this knee surgery change me? What lies ahead? I’m already learning that humility and gratitude are necessary components for healing. And I can see that the universe is bringing me helpers for this passage.

Deborah Gregory

recently wrote a piece called, The Forest Beneath Her Pillow:

“Nine years ago, we discovered the Celtic tree alphabet – twenty letters, each one connected to a different tree. On our walks, we began collecting fallen sticks and, at times, carefully cutting tiny branches, bringing them home to carve symbols – each one a letter in this ancient script.

Then, one magickal night, just before sleep, I heard a gentle whisper from within: “Slip one inside your pillowcase.”

Deborah is one of my helpers and guides at this threshold of surgery . . . though I didn’t know it when I first read her piece. I don’t know the Celtic tree alphabet, but the next time I was in my backyard, I picked up some fallen sticks from the trees that shelter this home and brought them inside. I labeled one Grandmother, from the Spanish Oak, and the other Sister, from the Live Oak. I put them on my night stand. Tonight I will slip one into my pillowcase. Trees have long been guides, helpers and healers in my life. Tree energy equals strong foundations/ trunks. My knee replacement is a repair of one of my leg trunks. Helpers and guides come from both sides of the veil.

This surgery is a threshold. It will change me somehow. My sense is that lessons of gratitude, humility and kindness are already embracing me; and the energy from the tree-kin I live with will guide and me too. . . back to a stronger foundation. For now, I rest in the arms of love, grateful for family, friends and allies from the other side. I am not alone.

See you on the other side . . .

Some tree energy for the nights ahead . . .