Eddie Whitlock's Blog: Reader and Writer - Posts Tagged "flaws"

I was born with flat feet. And I think I had a club foot, too, but I am not sure. When I was a kid, my parents would take me to Scottish Rite Children's Hospital in Atlanta for treatments.

The treatments included putting my legs in casts over and over. I don't know that it did any good, but I think it made my legs shorter than they would have been, if only be a few inches.

I'm five foot-two. A few inches would have been a good thing.

Anyhow. The treatments ended when I started school. Then when I was 13 or so, they operated on one of my feet. The next year, they operated on the other. The surgery didn't do much good, either.

For years I blamed myself, thinking that I had done something wrong when I was in recovery from the surgery, but over the years I have come to realize that is probably not the case.

My left foot has gotten worse and worse, though neither foot is too good. Last year I got shoe inserts that help with pain but don't do anything to fix the problem.

So.

This morning, I was looking at my feet, thinking how gnarly that left one is.

And I was reminded of Pop.

Poppa Whitlock, my father's father, walked with a cane when my mother first met him. I remember his left leg being twisted pretty badly, the heel turned almost parallel with his right foot.

I remember that he would take his shoes and socks off and prop his foot on the cane when he sat. Looking at my foot now, I see Pop even though he's been dead nearly forty years after he died.

Pop's impediment made him who he was. Mine makes me who I am. No, not entirely, of course. We're more than the sum of our flaws.

But our flaws are probably more memorable than our commonality.