Finding Life in the Dead Rose Bush

            I have two rose bushes, one of which received attention last year, needs more this year, and can be saved.  The other I had not yet attended to before I lost the use of my hands in August.  I have my hands back, but only after months of healing and therapy.  For that story, see “Letting Go, Part 1.” 

            This spring, my second rose bush spoke the message of its neglect.  The lost treasure was now overcome with a great many dead branches protruding through a mass of weeds, four feet high, towering over a plant that had previously produced a burst glorious magenta, rich blossoms of roses abounding with life.  None were now to be seen through a corpse covered over with weeds of various sorts and crabgrasses a foot above the branches.

I have no "Before" photo of the rose bush with its towering weeds, but they looked like these.

And here the weeds and dead branches now.

 

            Expecting the need for a landscaper to come in with some equipment to haul off my dead bush, I spent this spring attending to other parts of my yard.  Finally, last week, I skeptically wondered whether my dead bush could be saved.  If nothing else, I could reduce the cost for someone to come in and haul it away by minimizing its size.  

With a deep breath and determination, I met my former treasure, the current adversary I had created, and I began weeding around the bush, through it, and clipping dead branches.  It’s delicate work because even the dead branches have thorns, pricks screaming at me for what my neglect had done to their source of life. 

To my astonishment, as I pulled the weeds and clipped the dead branches, little signs of life – small, tender branches with green leaves on them – came into view.  These brave little babies poked through, trying to survive beneath their oppressors and crying for help. 

Now my work became even more delicate.  I had been its careless killer, and now I vowed to be its careful savior.  I knew this remnant with life, these little, courageous branches of green, must be protected while their aggressive invaders and the corpses among them get cut out.  Slowly, carefully, patiently, I made progress to save the lives of the budding branches.  

I can save the rose bush.  I had been sure it was dead, and now, I am sure it has life.

 

Amazingly, the rose bush has life!

This process of weeding, pruning, and cutting out what’s dead mimics my life of the past three years.  During this time, I’ve lost my marriage, my career, my next job to a fire, the use of my hands, my kids off to college, and just last week, ended a temporary position.  Weeding, pruning, cutting out what’s dead.  Letting Go.  For three years, letting go of what has lost life has marked my life, and now it is time to find life in death.  My rose bush tells me I can.  Surprising life buds in what has died. 

This morning, as I shared the story of my rose bush, a friend spoke what many have said to me in these past few years.  “For all you’ve been through, I admire you and honor you.  I would have been crushed to lose so much so quick.” 

“I don’t think I would have made it had I not seen little signs of life, like those promising branches of life,” I replied.  “Surprising, little buds of life that I would not have expected to be there, kept showing themselves to me, keeping me going, giving me hope, helping me to never give up.” 

There is Life in death.  Now, after years of letting go, I am sure of that too.  Let go, and watch the surprising blossoms shoot into Life.

© 2023 by Karina.  All rights reserved.  Use only with permission.

With love comes . . .

 With love comes sight
With sight comes wisdom

With wisdom comes grief

With grief comes service

With service comes exhaustion

With exhaustion comes brokenness

With brokenness comes letting go

With letting go comes Freedom

© 2023 by Karina.  All rights reserved.  Use with permission and/or a link to this blog post.

Letting Go, Part 2: Life without Hands

            One day you’re on the go, vibrant, athletically active, and doing heavy labor for a landscaping project.  The next day, your teenage daughter is dressing you, bathing you, and tying up your hair.  Both of your hands and wrists are bandaged up.  In the coming days, she and your 21 year-old son will be opening the fridge for you, pouring your water, making you sandwiches, tying your shoelaces, clipping your fingernails, driving you wherever you need to go, and cleaning whatever you and they agree to, which is not much, leaving you with a home and a yard in much disarray.  You have to Let Go.

            That was me in August, 2022 after I had fallen six feet from my kids’ play gym while clipping tree branches from it and the beam I was leaning against gave way.  Thankfully, I immediately fell into a dream-state which cushioned the force of my fall, spared me from pain, and protected me from shock for the first 90 minutes after my fall, as described here in Part 1.

            It’s said that physical pain is mental, something I now know first-hand.  For the first hour and a half after I fell, I was in a dream-state and unaware of pain.  Once I began to regain normal consciousness, I became aware of a mild headache.  As it grew, I complained of it and asked for some pain medication.  The doctor said I could have no medication until the CT scan had been completed and examined.  To me, he seemed nonchalant to my growing headache, but he was probably smiling to himself that I was not complaining of pain in my two broken wrists (or the yet-to-be discovered crushed ligaments in my right hand).  Not until about three hours after my fall and a half hour or so before I received pain medication did I begin to feel the pain in my wrists and hands.  Quite how much physical pain that dream-state spared me from I will never know.  But for that and much more, I will always be grateful.

            “Thank goodness I had no concussion,” I texted my mom and two best friends the following morning with my working fingers.  “Back & neck OK, I can walk and 4 working fingers.  And 2 kids who are awesome – much to be grateful for.”  By divine mercy, I was also naïve about how little I could actually do and how long my recovery would be.

            A week after my fall, I texted them again with my orthopedist’s warning to do barely nothing through August, and closed, “I’ll heal, but this is hard.  Thank goodness I didn’t injure myself more.”

            “I know taking it easy isn’t your style,” one friend replied, “I hope you find ways to relieve your anxiety.  Healing takes time and better to not re-injure those delicate bones.”

            I agreed.  ”I’m working to keep it all in perspective, especially that I wasn’t more injured.  The orthopedist was surprised my injuries were minor compared to what they could have been.”

            But I didn’t agree enough.  I kept improving, able to do a bit more each day, and kept wanting to try something new every day.  Two or three weeks after my fall, “new” meant simple tasks like sweeping the floor, straightening the blankets on my bed, pouring water, wiping up the water I had just spilled, making toast and spreading margarine on it, cleaning a few dishes, heating soup in the microwave, and making coffee.  That last one turned out to be harder than expected.  My coffee maker has its own reusable filter that needs to have the old, wet grounds knocked out and cleaned before scooping in new grounds.  In addition to opening a lid, pouring water, and scooping new grounds in, I also had to knock out those old grounds, a simple task that sent pain surging from my fingers to my elbow.

            I was counting on good news at my four-week appointment with the orthopedist, but she informed me my x-rays showed that while my left wrist was healing, but my dominant right was not.  “Our bones are like twigs,” she warned me.  “Too much bending or stress builds on the break.”  Again, I texted my trio: “my body is not invincible and I have a very hard time releasing myself of that delusion!”

That I am not invincible was just the start.  Life without hands showed me I had much to learn:

Humility: when your teenage daughter is bathing you and your college student son is clipping your fingernails, you have to become very humble very quick.

Take nothing for granted: when you celebrate a thumb that works so you can dress yourself, you start to see how much you’ve taken for granted. 

A gentle touch:  You don’t realize how hard your touch can be until every touch brings you pain.  You’re starting to get better, so you’re now opening doors, pressing the walk button at a crosswalk, closing your dresser drawer, shaking someone’s hand, patting your teenager on the back for a job well done, squirting out hand cream, and knocking out those coffee grounds: those things you’ve done every day for years and taken for granted, and now they bring pain.  You wonder if your touch has been too hard, and then you wonder if your speech has been too hard, and if you need to seek a more gentle way to touch, to speak, and to live.

Forgive yourself:  You were foolish and you fell.  Now forgive yourself and learn.

Release yourself from other people’s expectations: there are those who think you should heal fast and get back to life.  But your body knows, and it tells you.  Listen to your body and set yourself free from those who think they know your body better than you do.

Show compassion: If you find yourself impatient with anyone, remember they might have just fallen.  Maybe they can’t use their hands.  Maybe there’s something else they can’t do that you can’t see.  Show compassion.

Slow down!  You’ve forgiven yourself – good.  But if you don’t want to re-injure yourself, slow down!

Let Go!  No matter where you are, where you’ve been, how hard you’ve fallen, nor how stupid you were when you fell, let it all go.

 

            By the time of my fall, I had already and very recently had to let go of more than I ever thought I could.  Within the past year, I had already lost both my marriage and my teaching career, both of over two decades, and both so seemingly strong.  My marriage had been a strong partnership for service and home projects, parenting, and friendship and concluded itself amicably, after turmoil and grief along the way.  In my teaching career, I was continuing to excel, even with my office and classroom moved into my bedroom for the pandemic, but I was caught in a political drama outside of me, a pawn by top administrators, mostly new and from far away.  I learned that no matter the excellence of my own performance, I am not invincible.  To release a career I was passionate about and my marriage all at once called for super-human strength in Letting Go.

I discovered a remarkable truth, one that people say, but you have to discover for yourself: there is much freedom in losing and letting go.  When everything we’ve thought we need to do and need to be is taken from us and we can’t do and can’t be what we’ve thought we needed to, we discover we don’t need to do that or be that.  We have the freedom to let go of all of those expectations we’ve placed upon ourselves and that we think others have placed upon us.  We also discover that whether or not others have in fact placed those expectations upon us doesn’t matter.  Either way, we have the freedom to let go.

As we let go, we also learn one of life’s greatest lessons: Life will work for you if you let it.  This is true even when you lose what you love.  As I was learning to literally let go during my life without hands, I had no knowledge that before the year was out, I would have to let go yet again, also of something very significant, from a fire to the place where I worked and played, a story I hope to share in a third part in a few months.

The universe provides what we need for our own growth and, ultimately, for our abundant life.  Security and being in control might be what I had wanted, but they were not what I needed.  What I did needed: to surrender, slow down, and Let Go!

Return to Letting Go, Part 1: The Fall

© 2023 by karina. All rights protected.  Please use with permission and/or a link to this blog post.

Letting Go: A Return to Hibernation

         In August, I fell six feet from a play gym while leaning against an insecure beam to clip tree branches.  Only a miracle protected me from being no more injured than two broken wrists and soft tissue damage to my right hand.  Still, without hands, I had to let go.  The metaphor of my injury – losing the use of my hands – fits so perfectly into the season of my life.  In 2021 and 2022, I lost my career, my marriage, my two kids off to college, my next place of work destroyed in a fire, and in the middle of those losses, the use of both of my hands.  In each of these, I had to “let go,” and in one of them, literally.  Last month I began a series here, with the story of my six foot fall on “Letting Go.” 

Currently, I’m drafting “Letting Go, Part 2: Life without Hands,” to describe the experience of literally letting go of everything, what it was like, and what I was learning from it.  To do so takes some time, and I hope it will be ready in March.  Meanwhile, I’ve been marveling over the preoccupations that began to capture my imagination during the pandemic.  Should I be chilled or awed by the prophetic nature of some of my posts in the past couple of years, like this one, this one, this one, and, especially, at the start of 2022, this one. 

Little did I know in January, 2022 quite how much “Hibernation” would mark my coming year.  Here is a repost of this poem from a year ago; then below the poem is a small sneak peek for the experience and the lessons of “Letting Go.”

 

Hibernation

The creatures of fur follow the signs of Nature

We creatures of skin run to and fro

no matter Her works of beauty or terror

Snow coming, forecasters warn

The furs, ready, hibernate

The skins, deaf, go about their day

 

All afternoon, snow surprises

dumping,

dumping,

softly,

quietly,

deceptively

 

The day still young

the sky turns black

Snowflakes stream,

glistening the darkening sky

in lights of white

haloed in orange

 

Any who slow themselves

who sit

who watch

fuse with the flakes in stillness

 

5 am, calls go out

Schools are closed

Businesses are closed

Roads are blocked

All are snowed in

 

What if calls come the night before?

Or before quittin’ time the day before?

When the creatures of fur,

with no forecasters,

are already nestled in hibernation?

 

“Take My yoke upon you,”

says the master,

“For My load is light, and My burden is easy.”

Racing about, we wonder how

 

Could we hear the wisdom of the furs

who follow the signs of Nature

and work when it is time to work

play when it is time to play

rest when it is time to rest

 and who know there is a season for outings

and a season for hibernation?

 

I of skin,

used to the race,

am paralyzed, mute

Could I learn from the furs?

Could I learn

of a time to speak,

a time be silent,

a time to walk,

a time to rest,

and a season to hibernate?

 

            I think this is precisely what I’m learning.  Although August and September were hardly months for “Hibernation,” they were for me, when I could do little and go nowhere.  It was like Life was saying Let Go and Hibernate, and while you do, you’ll reflect and learn the beauty of letting go.  As a sneak preview, some of this is that I am not invincible; to have humility, gratitude, a gentle touch, and take nothing for granted; to forgive myself and release myself from others’ expectations; to slow down and let go!; and to build compassion and sensitivity for others in whatever limitations or trials they may have. 

Letting Go:

Letting Go, Part 2: Life without Hands

Letting Go: Part 1: The Fall

Letting Go (part 1): The Fall

             “Did I call you?” I asked my son, unaware of whether I was awake or dreaming.

            “You did.”  My son, home from college, spoke in a voice firm but gentle.

            “That was smart of me.”  My voice felt wistful, barely audible, yet demanded much strength.

            “It was very smart of you.”

 

            Seeming to open my eyes that were likely already open, I found myself lying on a wheeled bed-cot in a clinical room with my son sitting in a chair next to me.  A steel rail guard to my side, as high as my upper arm, separated me from him.  To find my way between its beams to reach for his hand would require an energy I lacked.  Saddened, I looked down to my hands instead and saw them limp, dirty, and injured.  I realized I could not move either hand anyway.

            The Emergency Room.  Clarity was dawning, but I wondered if I was dreaming.  Hoping so, I mustered the energy to speak.  “I dreamed that I fell from the play gym.” 

            “You may have dreamed it, but you also did it.”  My son’s voice was quiet and caring.

            “I must have been sleepwalking,” I said, wistful.

            “Maybe.”

            “Did I call you?”

            “You did.”

            “That was smart me.”

            “It was very smart of you.”

 

I didn’t know it yet, but an hour and a half had passed from my call to my son to that moment in the ER.  I remembered my activity before the fall, the call to my son, and very little else, but wondered whether all of it had been a dream.  My son was entering his senior year of college and home for the summer.  We had a swing set and play gym in our backyard that he and my daughter, about to be head off to college, no longer needed, and I had a friend had shown interested in it.  “I’ll cut off the branches from the tree and then you can come see it,” I texted her.  If she and her family would dismantle and take it away, they could have it for free.  But I, at least, needed to make it accessible by cutting off the branches from the nearby tree that were now enveloping the play gym.

            I began the project on the ground, beneath our gorgeous but looming maple tree, and I clipped many branches from there.  But with my limited tools, other branches could be accessed only by climbing up onto the play gym itself.  Many more I clipped by standing on the wooden structure, beginning with those to the side and then to those in front, some of which were further out, but still very much in the way.  The play gym had not been used in a long time and had weathered many of our region’s harsh winters.  I should have checked the stability of the wooden 2 x 4 beam, nailed into the wooden beams to my side, before I leaned against it to cut these further out branches.  The wooden beam gave way.  “I’m going to fall,” I thought. “It’s okay.  I’ve dreamed many falls.”  I entered the dream state and let go, then fell six feet.

            My next memory has me lying flat, face up, on the grass in our backyard.  I remembered that my son was home and my daughter was at work, so I screamed his name, and kept screaming, but neither he nor any of neighbors heard me.  “Do I have my phone?” I wondered.  Reaching for it in my back pocket was a strain, but it was there!  With much strength, I pulled it out and clicked Contacts.  “Thank goodness he’s an ‘A,’” I thought as I scrolled for my son’s name and clicked the call button.

            After that, including the call itself, I remember very little until I found myself in the ER.  My other clear memory of events was seeing my daughter next to me, driving our car.  My son was in the back seat.  In that brief moment, I knew she was driving us – me -- to the hospital. 

The following morning, back at home with both of my hands and arms bandaged (later to receive orthopedic casts), my son told me why I knew: he had told me many times his sister was coming home, “and then we’re taking you to the hospital.”  She was at work and had the car.  He had called her to come home and informed me of this.  He also told me what else he had done: how he had lifted me up at my armpits from my fallen state, walked me to our patio swing, got me some pillows and water, brought me inside to my own bed, propped me up there, and kept talking to me.  Once my daughter was home, they both helped me to the car, and my son buckled me in while saying, “We’re taking you to the hospital.”

I didn’t remember any of these events, and I thanked him for handling my rescue and my care so well.  I also told him I was astonished by the text thread on my phone, used by him  to share the news of my fall and give updates to his dad (my recent former husband), my mom, and my two best friends.  My phone recorded details of what had transpired, complete with time stamps: my entrance into the ER, my tetanus shot, the doctors’ concerns, my CT scan, my x-rays, the report of my CT scan as normal, and my responses along the way.  “I don’t remember any of that until I was wheeled in for x-rays,” I told my son, shaking my head.  Then I smiled.  “I most remember learning the good news that my CT scan came out normal.”

I then shared with him the misty memories I had just after the fall, not only calling him, but also the interaction about it -- that I had asked him if I had called him, that he said I did, that I said that was smart of me, and that he replied it was very smart of me.  My son laughed and said that interaction was “a broken record,” something I had asked many times, always the same way, always with the same replies from him, and always with the same reply from me, something he now found charming and amusing.

            I chuckled.  “I really thought I was dreaming.”

            “I know,” he interrupted with another chuckle.  “You kept saying, ‘I dreamed . . .’ and I kept saying, ‘You might have dreamed it, but you also did it.’”

            “Another broken record,” he said, laughing.  I joined him in laughter and praised him.  Had he complained that my repetitive question had already been answered, he might have thrown out me of a state of mind that was protecting me.

            “It seemed to calm you,” he replied, “so I kept doing what seemed to be working.”  He said he didn’t mind my repetitions as long as I was speaking and awake, but it was worrisome, and the doctors were concerned about a brain injury.  My own sense was a very dim perception of a possible concussion overlaid with the continued sense that I was dreaming.  Although I lost memory of most of the actual events, I shared with my son what I remember of my thoughts, that part that thought I was dreaming.  What I call my “whispers of mystery” were coaching me.  You’ve injured yourself.  Stay alert.  Keep talking.  Talking took enormous energy, and I was too delirious to say anything.  My whispers kept encouraging me.  Keep talking. What do you remember?  My strength was waning, but I continued to comply, succeeding only in a couple of broken records.  But importantly, with my son’s loving replies, I succeeded in what most mattered: staying enough awake to maintain consciousness.

            It wasn’t until I was informed of the good news from the CT scan that my thoughts became clear.  By that time, my daughter was with me in the ER.  Due to COVID protocols, the hospital permitted only one guest in the patient’s room.  One of my dim memories in the ER was asking the nurse if my daughter could come in too and hearing her apologize that only one guest was allowed.  I understood, but was sad.  Then I heard my daughter on the other side of the wall say, “But I can hear you, Mom.”  That comforted me; I told her I love her, and heard her say the same to me.  I could breathe better having heard her.

            Then, while I was away for the CT scan and the x-rays, my kids switched places.  When I was wheeled back into my room, I saw my daughter sitting there, another moment I remember, still with dim dreaminess.  I was happy to see her.  I don’t recall what she and I talked about, nor how long we waited for the health care workers.  But I do remember the moment the nurse shared the news that no damage to my head was shown on my CT scan.  My whispers returned. You can relax now.  The nurse checked my vitals, left the room, and I took in a very deep breath of relief.  “I can relax now.” 

“Did they tell you that?” my daughter asked.  I knew my daughter’s pronoun “they” referred not to my whispers, but to the health care workers.  How could I respond?  The doctor then arrived.  “Maybe he can tell us."  The doctor reported the test results: I had shown symptoms of a concussion, but the CT scan showed no physical evidence of one.  “But you broke both of your wrists.”  I wasn’t yet ready to take in what that might mean and thought, “At least I still have my head.” 

We didn’t ask him whether I could now relax, but I knew I could.  Ironically, that was also the moment when my need to strive so hard ceased.  I found myself awake, no longer in the dream-state.  Maybe I needed to hear that my head was fine before I could fully wake up. 

The dream state protected me in ways that chill me to consider.  I had fallen six feet.  I broke both of my wrists and injured my right hand, but I broke nothing in my legs, nor my feet, nor my back, nor my neck, nor my head.  Miraculously, I walked in and out of the hospital, never needing a wheel chair.  I had limped my body into a dream state, lightening the force of my fall.

In dream mode, I had let go.  I was in a season of letting go: letting go of my husband through the official end of our marriage four and a half months earlier, letting go of my kids off to college, letting go of my teaching career through early retirement the prior year.   Now, instantly, I would be called upon to let go of much more.  I was entering a time in my life without the use of my two hands, about to learn what it literally means to “let go.”

Continue to Letting Go, Part 2: Life without Hands